Mitten State or Bust

Every time there's a change on the horizon of my life, God plants in me a restless stirring. For the past couple of years we've been in a waiting period. That was clearly spoken to my heart: WAIT. Be still and wait. Be still and know. (You should know I'm not great at waiting. Or being still for that matter.) I felt a little like we were just suspended in time. Everything was copacetic you know? I would even sit down to write on this blog and nothin'. Zip. Zero. Zilch. I felt as if there were no words. All was well, humming right along.
And then came the stirring, the nudging. Something new coming.
One of those somethings:

SURPRISE!!!!!

It's no secret that we've felt a longing over the years to be closer to our families, and suddenly the timing seemed right. Other shifting circumstances in our life led us to believe that the way home was being opened up.
And then more waiting.
But this summer it's happening. Michigan, baby.  And I've gotta be honest with you that I really thought as of mid-May we'd have a LOT more answers about what this transition is going to look like. The only thing we feel sure of is that it's time. The message on our hearts now is GO. But go to what? No other details have been revealed to us: jobs, housing (both on this end and that one), schools, town, an exact moving date - these are all question marks yet.
As a closet VERY LOUD control-freak this is terrifying. I could regale you with the moments in the past month that I've spent in the fetal position about this.  It is unnerving to look into the future and see, well, nothing. To have no visual of where we'll be and what we'll be doing. All the so many unknowns.
And then there are ALL THE FEELINGS about leaving behind our tribe here. I can't even handle it. Our church, that we love so dearly, that has led us into new ways of living out our faith. We will gratefully carry that with us into our new adventure. Our neighbors. For so long I fought owning this neighborhood and its people. And now I can hardly bear to leave. The vast mountain of friends with whom God has intertwined our hearts. Our PEEPS - with whom we've shared life over the past twenty years, who have been our family.I can't really imagine a life in which I don't see them regularly (Facebook posts and Instagram notwithstanding).
God in His infinite mercy consistently and gently leads me out of my tantruming at all this and brings me back to His feet, where He reminds me that I am loved more than sparrows (Matt. 10:29-30), He's got this (Jeremiah 29:11), and that I'm on a need-to-know basis and don't always need to know! (Prov. 3:5-6). He has reminded me that my family and I are so, so loved. Too loved to wallow in sameness, to become stale and complacent. Too loved to be safe and comfortable and at risk of storing up the wrong treasures. And I think we were at-risk of doing/becoming those things in our current life. Too dependent on ourselves and our smooth circumstances. I have no doubt He's stripping me of my comforts and self-reliance to draw me closer, to draw me deeper. And I know we are also too loved not to be given a new place to land where we can bring Him even greater glory.
And so we continue to move forward and trust. When we second-guess this path and think about alternatives, we lose peace, and I think the PEACE is the true indicator of being in the right place.
So....stay tuned.


PS - Does anyone else find it eerie that my posts from the last three years have been all in MAY?!