Tomorrow we can say it’s been a month.  One official month since our family got all of our vehicles and belongings in the same general vicinity and we all slept in our new house(es) on our new land, in our new town.  In most every way, I feel like we’ve adjusted amazingly well.  Perhaps the lengthy trips we’ve taken over the past several years in various living conditions have helped us be prepared for new things.
But it doesn’t hurt that waking up here every morning is an utter joy.  We all feel like we are on vacation!  Except for the working part.  But like a vacation, we have new things to do and see when we are not working!  And it doesn’t hurt that we moved to a place we’d only laid eyes on once before we moved in.  Not only had we not seen the house but one time, we’d only seen this area and all of its surroundings once before we made it our permanent home..  It sounds crazy even to my own ears.  But in our defense we’d read a lot about it!  Ha!
No, really, we researched this area and all it has to offer us and our dreams and when God showed us the house and  acreage that accompanied the dream, we were all in!  And after having road-tripped forty-eights states, this place, well, it captured our hearts in a huge way.  It has all of the elements of our favorite locations from coast to coast.   It has mountains and lakes of all sizes and rivers and the breathtaking vistas to go with them.  And lots of privacy.  We fall in love with it every time we go the many miles it is into town, or to see the sights, or right here on our lots-of-land.
And before you ask or comment about where we are, this location will remain a mystery for now since this is the *www* and all.
We went from a ranch house in the city limits to a three-story home on lots of acres.  Before, we had a garbage man.  Now…not so much.  Then, we could walk to town.  Here?  Ha.  Hahahaha!  Going to town by car is an event!  At night in our old house, we fell asleep near street lights and hoped the neighbors couldn’t see in if we left a light on.  Now, we are lulled to sleep by the sound of wolves howling, and frogs, and birds we’ve never heard before.  Here, at night, I awaken in the dark and look out my third-story, feels-like-a-treehouse-window, and see the blackest of nights lit only by a blanket of a gazillion twinkling stars;  below me a carpet of green lightning bugs twinkling away for their audience of one.  Here, I have wildflowers and roses and apple trees and waterfalls and quaint little towns dotted with friendly people and fresh slices of Americana.
And room to breathe.
What I haven’t gotten used to yet are just little things.  How does one possibly collect laundry from three different stories without it becoming a full-time job?  And vacuuming?  Don’t even get me started.  This house is just going to be less vacuumed.   And where in the world is my box of summer sandals?  Summer is half over and I have little hope of finding them in time.  Sigh.  And then this big dilemma:  in which drawer should the cheese grater belong?
And another thing that will take some time…somehow, we stick out like a sore thumb.  Maybe it’s the car we drive?  Perhaps our lack of an accent?  It could just be that everyone knows everyone here.
We do know that we belong here.  But like with anything new and shiny, there was a price to pay.  To get here, we had some cost.  I don’t mean literally, though that was a certainly a part of it.  I mean that God has His own plans for us — big, BIG plans that exceeded our own imaginations.  But to get to them, we really had to be willing to lay everything else down and follow His call.  I see that now in our story.  With even a month’s worth of perspective, the massive trials we went through were tuning us into His voice more than ever.  Before we could follow Him into this new and promised land, He needed to make sure that we were listening with all of our might.
If I was leading my kids blindfolded toward the biggest, most amazing surprise imaginable, I would hope that no matter how rocky the path, or how many obstacles along the way that they would trust my heart for them.  That they would listen for my voice and trust me to hold their hand and gently guide them to what awaited them.  And once they got there and the surprise was revealed, I would hope they would see the absolute love behind not only the gift, but the heart and hands that led them on the journey to get there.
That place, of obedience and listening is where I long to be.  So that makes this place, the one on the map, even sweeter.
And with that, I think I have a box of dish soap to find…