We recently moved. (That is a story in and of itself!) We moved from a highly sought after neighborhood, and though our house was nothing extreme, it had a lot of luxuries in it. The neighborhood had rolling hills, tree lined streets, spread out houses. Our enormous backyard was also tree lined and we enjoyed privacy that's hard to come by in the city. Conveniently located, we were not far from anywhere we needed to go. It was convenient, it was beautiful, it was great for us. We moved there when I was six months pregnant with Sophia and we were dreamers in parent life.
The neighborhood and the house we moved to was extremely different. As a newer community, the houses are very close together, there are few trees, and the trees that are here are young. Our small back yard has no trees, and we can hear and sometimes see into our neighbors' back yards, as we assume they can into ours. In fact, there is so very little privacy, I have had to work hard at breaking some old habits. Being outside the city, we have to be intentional to plan outings and time them right so they make sense for us. It takes 20 minutes to drive to school. Our house is almost twice the size of our last house, giving us room to spread out. Everything has a place. But what it offers in space, it lacks in luxury. The house is a workhorse. It is practical, it is efficient, it is not glamorous, (though we find it quite beautiful at times.) We moved into it as a family of five in the thick of parenting in reality with three kids 4 and under. You can probably already see how well suited the house is for our needs.
On our last night at the old house, Andy and I climbed onto the roof to look at stars, feel a breeze, and remember the good times we had in that house. We were excited to move and looked forward to having lots of neighbors, having a playroom where all the toys could remain, neatly organized in a closet. Though our neighborhood had rolling hills that offered a challenging workout, it was not the best for teaching kids to scooter or bicycle, especially with the lack of side walks. But two things stood out as being the most missed. Berkley. Sweet Berkley. There were memories of him all over that house. We would turn a corner and expect to see him lying in his spot. Some days that brought a smile and some days that brought tears. We were not ready to move on. It felt like we were leaving him behind. There was nothing to be done about that. The second thing was the trees. These 50 year old trees that bloomed in spring and flowered, shaded our yard in the heat of summer, turned color for a week in the fall :) and brought beauty to the whole neighborhood. They would be missed. We were leaving Beauty behind. And we felt here too, that there was nothing that could be done about it.
But 36 hours later we woke up for the first time in our new house and my jaw dropped as my heart leapt in my chest. Because the first thing I saw that morning was the sunrise and it could take your breath away. You can't see the sunrise or the sunset when you are surrounded by enormous trees. In fact, since moving in almost three months ago, I have seen the sun rise and the sun set each day. It comes up outside my bedroom window and you can sit on the back porch and watch it ascend, and I see it go down out the playroom windows or standing on the driveway and the sky is spread out before me like the vast open space that it is, and I breathe in the fresh air, and feel the wind on my skin, and soak in the Beauty.
In the eighty or so sunrises and sunsets we have watched God is whispering to me that his plans are good. That he knows me inside and out and will meet every need, in his own way, when I least expect it.
