Sunday, September 29, 2013

Log of Jumbled Thoughts ...May to September

It is the first day of May and people are walking through our house. They have been there for thirty minutes. We have walked around the block and now we are standing near our car talking with a Christian friend. Pauline says, "Let's pray that you sell the house today." So we pray and at ten o'clock that night we have a buyer.

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We agree to the terms of a contingent contract. We are now obligated to a long wait...It is very long. And by July 31 we have waited through four changes of our closing date. In June we pack most of our belongings in boxes, then load them into the first pod container. We live with a futon mattress couch, a few towels and kitchen supplies, a garden table and chairs in the dining room, a tool box for a desk, and a mattress on the floor in the bedroom. Late in July the last pod sits on the street waiting the final few boxes and mattresses. In two days we load and clean the house. At 8:45 pm on July 31 we lock the door and drive off to the hotel. We no longer own a house.

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August 9, 2013, we leave the hotel and move to a cabin on a lake for our last two weeks in Washington. Our sons come for a weekend. We enjoy their company. Our family is so scattered. We have not seen them for many months. They are full of plans and knowledge and when they leave our hearts remember them each day.

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We make many visits to friends and enjoy church and neighborhood parties.
There are tearful farewells.  Taking leave is hard and it leaves such an empty place.

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Finally the day of departure has arrived. I cannot look back. Each time we have flown out of the city I have watched the neighborhoods flow past beneath me. This day I will not look. My eyes are fixed on the future. Whatever comes I will look only forward. To remember and reach out, yes. But to long for the past would be a black pit of grief.  I will not go there.

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Sunday evening August 18, 2013, we arrive in Atlanta, exhausted feeling our age. Our daughter meets us. She is so eager and we are delighted to see her. For me all this seems like a dream. Yet God provides and we need not be wide awake to receive from His hand. At the airport help comes in the form of a porter who finds our lost luggage and gets it to fit inside our daughter's car. He seems like an angel to our tired minds. Monday morning the Lord provides a person who directs us to a furnished apartment where we can settle until we find a permanent place.

May to August the mundane and the sublime, days move like slugs on the walk.  Nights are deep and sleep zips away. Now in Georgia, I sit on the couch in the apartment. I think, "Finally the journey is over and now we can rest." But how could I know that the journey of house and home had only just started?

To be continued.


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