What a long, strange trip it's been (and it's not over yet!)

Part of me wants to breathe a sigh of relief. "It's done!" I could tell you. "We've found our next destination. No more waiting!" And indeed, that is true. In just two weeks time, we will be relocating to the new ministry position Aaron has accepted. As we speak he is there, looking to put an offer down on a new house and spending his first weekend retreat with his new youth group.
Phew.
Phew?
Not really.
I wish I had time to explain all the details of this past summer. I wish I had time to expound on all the ways I am thrilled to be getting my own space back (can we say, the potty training supplies are packed? The baby's been in our bed every night? I don't remember what my dishes look like? But I digress.) I even considered writing all the details of all the ways that God has been speaking to us and using this season. Truly, that would take a book and not a blog.
But I will share this...
I have struggled this summer with knowing what to say, and whom to say it to. We have been in conversations with people who have cheered us on in attempting to follow God, and in others where people have smiled politely at us with a "what the heck were you thinking?" look. It's scary, being out on the "crazy" limb alone. In fact, sometimes I look in the mirror and see the reflection of myself saying "yeah! He's speaking! He knows what He's doing. It's doesn't have to make sense because I know I am where He has me".....and then other times the same reflection says, "what the heck were you thinking?? You quit your job without another one??? WHAT??"

Early in the summer I was reading 1 Corinthians, and was struck in a new way by this passage:

^1:18-21The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.
^22-25While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can't begin to compete with God's "weakness."

Now, in no way am I attempting to compare my personal life to the message of Christ crucified. But I love this passage, because as I read it, I realize fresh that God does things that don't make sense to us. Period. The season we've been going through as a family didn't make sense to me. It seemed "wrong" somehow. But I knew very clearly that God was asking me if I would let Him use this season, and trust Him for the result. And I love that God works in the seeming foolishness.
There was a time mid-way through the summer when it looked like there was not going to be a "next season" anytime soon (mind you, this wasn't the first...or second....or third time that things looked this way). Each time the situation took us for a loop, I had to come back to the Lord all over again and decide whether I was getting off this tractor ride or not. Each time was a stretch...then a bigger stretch.
This has been a time of the most serious spiritual stretching I've ever known.
When we got to this particular stretch, I had too much. I remember telling Aaron, "if God doesn't show up by.........(insert date/circumstance here), then I am going to have a major crisis of faith on my hands, because we are so far beyond where He could possibly be moving, that I would just have to wonder if He's even there!"
Yeah, I think things like that sometimes. Do you?
So I struggled with this for awhile, and couldn't honestly see a way beyond it. I mean, I am on board with the job thing, the house thing, the Boston thing.....but this? This doesn't even make logical sense. It's so far beyond what anyone could EVER call a good plan.
I felt like I couldn't stretch anymore.
And then God showed up. Don't you love this part? I do, because it's where I learn (again), that my capacity to stretch and grow is way beyond what I thought.
I love the line in that passage: "Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God".
And He asked me, "if this is indeed what I ask of you, could you conceive that maybe I have a plan so utterly beyond what you can fathom, that you can't possibly see the good in it? Could you still believe that I am good, and that I am leading you? Would you be willing to put it all with me, knowing that the rest of your life might make no sense?"

There are people who go through life trying to measure their relationship with God, His involvement with them, even His existence against the evidence that makes sense.
And sometimes, I am one of them.
And sometimes He stretches us far beyond what makes sense to us, and sometimes it is there where we find Him to be more real than before.

So we are on to a new destination (and no, it's not the one I dreaded!:) And we firmly believe that God is leading us and opening doors. And in a way, there's excitement that this season is drawing to a close...we're excited for new things!
But then again, I have found God on a new level. He has "upped the anty" of His leadership of our family. He has stretched our relationship further than it's been stretched before.
And because of that, there is no sigh of relief. We can't say, "wow, we're glad it's over", because it's been so GOOD. We go into the next adventure with a little less dependence on our own "security", and a little more resolve that God is faithful.
So, further up and further in we go:)