Brooding...

Moving is chaotic.  Our home of sixteen years doesn't feel like ours anymore with most everything that made it unique to us packed in boxes that we have to weave our way around like a rat manipulating its way through a maze.  A new owner waits for the day she signs her name to the final documents and gets the keys to this home that used to be ours.  The home we're buying sits empty, waiting to be filled with life and living and love, but it's not officially ours yet, either.  We're in limbo, living in chaos and mess. Financial documents have been delivered to the appropriate parties to affirm that we are, indeed, responsible home buyers.  Inspectors have crawled through the attics and underbellies of both homes,  revealing every flaw they can find to avoid unpleasant surprises about what we're buying.  Appraisals are getting scheduled.  Closing dates dangle temptingly in front of us, like the proverbial carrot on the end of a stick.

I think about our new to us home.  I think about what it will look like with the new wood floors we hope to put in, some different light fixtures, some paint.  Mostly though, I think about this fall and imagine us all moved in, my favorite red soup pot simmering on the stove with something delicious inside, family and friends gathered round the kitchen and family room.  I think about the life we'll live there, the loving that will take place in those walls.

I don't do chaos well.  I'm a person who thrives on peace, on neatness, on order.  In this messy season, I've had to cling hard to the peace of God, had to lean on Him  to keep myself from flinging my frustration out on any and all innocent victims within range of my verbal assault.  After the inspection on our future home, I went to bed that night thinking maybe we had made a huge mistake.  Though everyone who looked at the report assured me there was nothing unusual or horrible on it, seeing thirty pages of every little thing you could think of that is flawed with this place you are investing all of your hard won equity into was daunting.  And did I mention that my husband happens to be half a world away on a long planned trip to Ghana, West Africa?  Yes, we had no idea that all of this would happen simultaneously when he scheduled the trip.  Maybe it's for the best, so he doesn't have to put up with my occasional freaking out episodes.  Well, there have been some panicky texts and calls back and forth, truth be told.  This is a lot to cope with solo.

God's great grace has been evident as well, though.  The morning after the house inspection, I woke up with a shift in perspective, with an unexplainable peace.  Last night, at our church's weekly prayer meeting, praise erupted like a fountain, out of the depths of my spirit, bypassing my tumultuous emotions and my mind filled with lists of things needing to be done.  I've sensed the Spirit hovering, brooding, over the stormy chaos of my life.  Like a mother hen, sitting on her eggs, brooding, waiting for new life to spring forth,  I sense the Spirit whispering, "Behold, I am doing a new thing!", and I know in the depths of my being that it is so much more than a new location.  He's positioning me for something I can't see yet, but I sense it there past the horizon, and I know it's going to be good.

still following,

Also happily linking up with the lovely Lisha Epperson 

and Cheryl McCain Photography.