Thankful Thursday

With tomorrow being Joshua's birthday I thought it would behoove me to go ahead and make my thankful list today since the next couple of days are going to be pretty busy. The celebration begins with taking cupcakes to school tomorrow. The light saber cakes will follow on Saturday.

• Obviously, my first thankful thought this week is for the 8 lb 3 oz baby boy I gave birth to 6 years ago tomorrow.
• David finally heard from Harrisburg about the job with the PA Health Dept. They hired someone else. Which, oddly enough, is exactly what David and I both had hoped would happen. Had he gottten that offer, we would have had a tough choice to make, but now we don't. We are bound for his hometown and happy about it. Now we have to decided whether he should go ahead without us or wait with us until we sell the house. He wants to stay. I want him to stay. Neither of us is sure which way God is leaning, though.
• The fact that I can even write and think about this without being overcome by fear and panic. That is truly a miracle in itself and one of the biggest signs for me that God is in control of this move.
• That I can still sign Josh's birthday card as "mommy." I wonder how many more years that will last.
• The chance to spend some good one-on-one time with Ethan this week. His math skills amaze me. Joshua may be the athlete in the family, but so far Ethan understands math on a level that Josh does not. He (Ethan) was doing simple subtraction without manipulatives or pictures yesterday, and he didn't get a single problem wrong. He did not get this from me. I got at least 3 wrong.

The boys playing soccer

This is for far away family who want to see the boys in action. Really, if you're not family, don't feel obligated to click. Or if you do, remember I won't know you pressed the stop button after 90 seconds. This is a really long clip, but it starts with one of Josh's MANY goals of last week's game. (The camera work is not great because, well, I'm a pretty lousy camera-operator, and because I was having to swivel back and forth between the fields the boys were on and try to watch Lauren at the same time.) So far this season, I would guess Josh averages about 8-10 goals per game. Ethan has scored only one goal so far (but it was the first of the season!), but he has really improved in getting to the ball and had quite a few assists last week. Okay, having pasted this clip, I'm now not sure it's the right one. Since it took about 6 years to upload to youtube, it's the one we're keeping here for now. Enjoy . . . who knows what's on this one!

Also, I swear I don't sound like that in real life. Not even close.

Showing our house . . . again

Our house has been shown 4 times in the past 6 days. Do you have any idea how hard it is to have a house show-ready 4 times in 6 days when your house is inhabited by 3 children under 6? (Yes, Susan, I know I'll get no sympathy from you!) Instead of looking like no one lived here, it looked like a lousy housekeeper and her 3 needy children lived here. You know, theoretically.

Of course, today I had invited my parents, brother, and niece for dinner and had planned an afternoon of fun at home with the kids. Not doing anything special, just having fun as it seems we have been at each other's throats a lot lately. Okay, mostly me at their throats if we're being honest. And whey wouldn't we be? It's just anyone on the whole freakin' internet I'm talking to here.

So, on my way to pick up Josh at noon, my cell phone rang - a realtor wanting to bring some people by the house between 4 and 5. So much for an afternoon of doing nothing. Instead I had to hurry home and make rolls from the dough I had already made last night (at least the house smelled yummy), put together the chicken lasagna alfredo that I was making for dinner (I know, you're drooling now aren't you?), and make the house look like no one lives in it.

Now that half of our belongings have been stuffed into my van, the house looks pretty good. That counts as cleaning, right? On the upside, the showing was a good excuse to buy some pretty fall flowers in Publix today. I would tell you what was in the bouquet if I knew. I just know they're pretty. And they're not dead yet.

Once the house was clean, I was of course, NOT letting the kids back inside. Heck, I routinely lock them out when there's NOT a potential buyer coming over; there was no WAY they were getting back inside now! So, we hung out in the backyard until the potential buyers and their agent arrived and then hid out at our neighbor's house while the realtor showed ours. While walking to our neighbor's my cell phone rang again; it was a man who saw the house last week wanting to come see it again with his builder brother tonight. I told him we were having company for dinner, but if he could come before 6, we could make it work. Didn't hear from him again until almost 7 . . . just as we were finishing eating dinner but still sitting around the table. Fortunately, my mom, dad, and brother all pitched in and we were able to recreate the fairy tale kitchen look in under 10 minutes, complete with the pretty flower centerpiece and all. As soon as the man and his brother left, we put the nice placemats back in the pantry, put the plastic Lightning McQueen and Tinkerbell placemats back on the table and gave the kids their dessert. Gotta love reality.

Betty Crocker I'm Not

If you had asked me a decade ago if I would ever say that I like to cook, the answer would have been a resounding NO! Yet, I've discovered over the past few years that I actually do. I love trying new recipes, using spices I've never tasted before, getting a reaction from my family about whether they like it. (And by my family, I mean Josh. Ethan likes pretty much nothing except cheese and quesadillas, Lauren's unpredictable, and David likes exactly 2 things I make. Yes, Joshua is my favorite.)

Lately my cooking has been going quite well; I have a batch of yeast dough rising in the fridge at the moment . . . my second in three days. As I was making the dough tonight, I was remembering some of my culinary attempts that went slightly awry, including my first attempt at said dough.

1. My first batch of yeast dough. When I was in law school my sister-in-law agreed to teach me how to make homemade dough. You'd think she would have learned after the disastrous attempt to teach me to sew when I was in college, but she's apparently pretty tenacious. So, she gave me the recipes with step-by-step instructions, one of which is to put the dough in the fridge to rise overnight in a large bowl covered with a dishtowel. I did exactly that. However, when I opened the fridge a little while later, the dishtowel no longer covered the massively expanding ball of dough. Dough was overflowing the bowl in every direction like a size 20 woman spilling out of a size 2 bathing suit. It kept growing . . . and growing . . . and growing. Turns out I left out the salt, which is apparently responsible for counter-acting the yeast so that the dough doesn't rise . . . and rise . . . and rise. It was useless for baking bread, but it was pretty fun as the world's larges glob of silly putty.

2. When I was in college I decided to bake a red velvet cake for a friend. The last step in making a red velvet cake is to add an entire 1 oz bottle of red food coloring. Unfortunately, food coloring and extracts come in very similar looking bottles. I poured into my cake batter an entire bottle of vanilla extract. I thought Vanilla Velvet Cake seemed like a brilliant idea what with the alliteration and all, but everyone else, not so much.

3. Another law school fiasco. Some family friends were in Va Beach with their son checking out the law school I attended. I invited them over for dinner and told them I was making some delicious vegetable soup. I think I built it up quite a bit telling them how good it would be. And then I served it. Oops. Forgot to put in ANY of the spices. Zip. Nada. None. Suffice it to say it was a little on the bland side. How does a person forget ALL of the spices?!

4. I can't tell you how many times I have cooked chicken, intending to make chicken soup and have accidentally drained the chicken by pouring all of the broth right down the drain . . . just before remembering it was supposed to be SOUP! Yes, many times.

5. David's one cooking attempt during our 8 years of marriage takes the cake. He was attempting mac-n-cheese . . . no, not the homemade kind, the Kraft in a blue box kind. He somehow neglected to notice the very crucial word "drain" in the instructions and proceeded to put the milk, butter, and cheese sauce in without draining the noodles! What's worse is that he INSISTED the instructions did not say drain. I had to dig the box out of the freakin' trash can to show him that it did. For some reason mac-n-cheese soup does not seem to have taken off as a culinary idea.

What about you? Any cooking fiascos to share with the world?

Thankful Friday

I've been feeling in a bit of a funk lately, and the last few days have had no desire to blog. Just empty space in my head where normally there are thoughts, random and senseless as they may be. However, in the spirit of not being a hypocrite, I thought I would at least reflect on all the things I have to be grateful for this week. (I say not being a hypocrite because I was just telling one of my children yesterday to stop being so negative and focus on the positive. Any guesses which child?) ;)

The chance to spend the whole day with my husband today. Granted, it was spent at a continuing legal education class in Atlanta, for which we had to leave town at 6:30 am, but still time together is time together.

A great book to read while trying to stay awake during the CLE. Like I could really care less about class action lawsuits when all I do is play Disney bingo and referee light saber fights all day!


An awesome mom and dad who let the boys spend the night at their house tonight after having all three of my kids all day today. Mom even came to our house at 6:30 this morning! (I have cinnamon rolls rising in the oven right now to take to them tomorrow. I know how to show gratitude.)

The smell of yeast dough.

My small group.

The house painting is finished.

It must be tough to be my kid

I'm not a hoarder. I am a purger by nature; when I am finished with something, I get rid of it. It's so bad that it truly never even occurred to me to keep a piece of my children's baby clothing until after Lauren was born. I kept nothing from the boys . . . not one thing. Of course, in preparation for moving soon, I have been in over-purge mode, which is saying A LOT for me. A conversation with Joshua last night makes me wonder if I haven't gone a bit overboard:

Josh: Mommy, some night soon can I please stay up all night to play with all of my toys?
Me: What?
Josh: I never have time to play with aaallll of my toys, so can I stay up all night to do it?
Me: No, of course you can't stay up all night. Why do you need to play with every toy at once?
Josh: Because sometimes you say you're getting rid of something because we haven't played with it in a long time.

Yes, he's a smart kid. Note to self: keep Joshua.

Perspective

I visited my uncle at the hospice center today. Advanced metastatic pancreatic cancer. That's the beast that has transformed this 55 year-old man from a healthy, doting grandparent to a shell wasting away before our eyes, all in a span of approximately 3 weeks. Three weeks. Three. weeks. My heart could not be heavier for him and his daughter, my cousin, as they try to wrap their minds around how this uninvited intruder has so speedily and stealthily robbed them of the man they knew. I think of my own dad and how I would feel if three weeks from now he was wasting away on a hospice bed, pain his constant companion.

How does one make sense of this? What can I say to make things better for either of them? What can I learn from this? I can hug my children tighter and speak more kindly to my husband, all the while promising that I will no longer take them for granted. I can swear that my perspective has changed and I'll never again waste precious days holding a grudge or wishing away the present in anticipation of an easier future . . . or simply not being fully present. I'll put the phone down and play Candyland one more time. I'll go a whole day without saying, "In a minute" when one of my kids calls for me to come and see something he's made. I'll read an entire book to my 2 year-old without turning 2 or 3 pages at once just because she's not old enough to notice. I'll bite my tongue. I'll tell my husband how proud I am of him. I'll . . .

But, will I really? For how long? Perspective is an amazing thing in its ability to profoundly shake and shape how we feel yet disappear in the blink of an eye when the daily grind of life forces itself back into the picture. Why can I not force it out? Why is my resolve so utterly useless?

Answers I do not have. But, for my uncle I will pray. Pray for healing. For peace. For relief from pain. For meaningful moments with his daughter and his grandchildren, moments they can remember forever. For my cousin I will pray. Pray for comfort. For strength. For unmistakable glimpses of God's profound love for her. For a miracle. For myself I pray that the Holy Spirit will find and destroy every self-serving, vain, lazy, and inconsiderate cell that robs me daily of precious moments with people I love. Change my heart, oh God.

Joshua, the composer

Josh begain learning to read notes on a staff at his piano lesson this week. A little while ago he said that he wanted to write music to go in a book for other people to play. Twenty minutes later, this is what he brought me (after asking me to help him spell saxophone - hope it's right) and said he wanted me to play it on the piano and David to play it on the trumpet.

I'm baffled

Before my surgery, Dr. B said my heart was doing an 8 minute mile while I was at rest. How is it that with a properly functioning circulatory system, I couldn't run an 8 minute mile now if my life depended on it? I run (and I use the term loosely) closer to an 8 minute half-mile! Is it just me or does this seem horribly, horribly wrong. (Which were probably the exact words going through the minds of every car that passed me tonight . . . horribly, horribly wrong.)

Is there any bigger fan than a little sister?

Yelling, "Go, Ethan, Go! Go, Joshua, Go!"

How cool a mom am I?

If you had asked me yesterday what award my kids would most likely nominate me for, I would have said without hesitation that it would be Meanest Mom of the Year or Most Likely to Scare the Crap out of Her Kids With a Mere Facial Expression . . . something along those lines. I'm pretty sure if you asked them again today, though, I would HAVE to at least be in the running for coolest mom.

I accidentally ran over this little fellow on our street this morning:





Seeing in my rear view mirror that he had not slithered away, I decided to check on him. He was almost dead, but not, um, splattered. (Sorry for the visual; can't think of a better word) Since he was still quite whole, I knew my kids would love to see and handle him, so I dumped the contents out of our lunchbox and bagged him for the kids. They loved seeing him and touching him (actually, it could have been a her, who knows), so it made for a fun little science lesson. No, we won't be eating out of that lunchbox again, mom. Don't worry.

I'm so sane I just blew my mind

Kudos to all who get the title reference. You can no longer be my friend if you do not. Sorry, them's the breaks.

So, last night I was putting the alarm clock/radio (which I have had since I was twelve, by the way, no joke) back on the nightstand after the painter so lovingly rearranged every item in my bedroom. (Seriously, did the computer chair HAVE to go right on top my fresh clean pillow?!) I got the nightstand out of the bathtub and squeezed it in sideways next to the bed so that we would not only wake on time in the morning, but also be aware of what time it was during the night when Lauren began her nightly shrieks of, "I need you! My room smells!" (The first night after her room was painted, she woke several times, and after the 3rd I thought maybe it was because of the paint smell. I made the mistake of saying this aloud, so now she thinks saying her room smells is a guaranteed ticket to mommy's bed. It was actually my room that got painted yesterday, but for some reason the logic of my room smelling stronger than her room was escaping her at 3:12 this morning.)

Now, back to my point. I knew it was 3:12 thanks to the alarm clock which this post is supposed to be about. If someone would just stop sending my brain off on rabbit trails. (Where did that phrase come from anyway? Are rabbits notorious for wandering aimlessly through the woods in directions they did not intend, all the while leaving trails behind them? Most rabbits I've seen aren't even big enough to leave a trail. Where are these mammoth sized bunnies that are giving rabbits everwhere such a bad rap?) Sorry, I digress again.

I set the clock and did a volume check to make sure it was loud enough to wake us in the morning. Getting only static, I adjusted the dial a bit and was stunned to hear an old Mylon and Broken Heart song ("Trains up in the Sky") on the radio. For those of you who didn't grow up listening to Christian rock (or maybe contemporary . . . who the heck knows the difference), Mylon was big back in the 80's. On one of my recent trips down memory lane, I uploaded a bunch of old songs onto my ipod, and this was one of them. Having not heard this song on the radio since about 1988 or so, I was quite surprised. Even more so because the dial was on the high 107's, and the only Christian stations I know of in town are 93 and 103. So, what was this song doing on 107 something? Hmm. A mystery.

It was near the end of the song, so I kept listening a bit to see what station I was listening to. Didn't say. Just switched to ANOTHER 1980's Christian rock song by the band Stryper. (Yes, I used to listen to Stryper, what of it?) Coincidentally, it was another song that I had put on my ipod a few weeks ago. I wondered aloud if I had gotten the radio connected to the computer or to my ipod somehow. Nope, connected to nothing except the electrical outlet. What could explain this? Maybe the painter, like vaccuum cleaner salesmen, is really a recruiter for some alien cult (you must get that reference in order to be my friend, too) and had done some kind of voodoo to my clock radio. I could think of no other logical explanation. Was I insane, or had my alarm clock somehow after 21 years of faithful service, just magically begun to pick up on what music I feel like listening to? David said to leave it on, maybe I would get a message from God soon. (He was clearly leaning toward the "insane" option.)

This morning: vindication. I am not insane. I awoke to the sounds of "Mr. Sun, sun, Mr. golden Sun, please shine down on me" being sung by the Little People. Now, I know there is something going on because who would would be weird enough to have that children's song and some obscure 80's Christian songs on the same radio station? No one but me, I assure you. Finally, I realized what was happening. The station was apparently 107.9 (hard to tell for sure; it's a dial), which is the station my ipod monster is set to in my van. (A monster is the nifty little device that lets me play my ipod through my van radio.) Yes, call me Sherlock, it only took me 8 1/2 hrs to figure this one out. I had no idea it would work on any radio in the vicinity. This is awesome! I guess. I don't actually listen to the radio in the house except for the three seconds before I beat the crap out of my clock each morning. (I know, I know, I should be kinder to it after all these years. I tell you, it gives David little hope that I grow kinder over the years.)

So, no I am not insane. I'm so sane I blew my mind. Just call me Kramer.

A breakthrough in multi-gender marketing

It's the little things that make life with offspring of both genders fun. At the moment, Lauren has Darth Vader riding on My Little Pony across the coffee table. Lauren says he's on his way to the store. Think a Darth Vader/My Little Pony combo pack could make it on Donnie Deutsch's The Big Idea?

At least he's a quick-thinker, right?

This afternoon I told Joshua to clean up the transformers on his bed because he wasn't playing with them anymore. Always acutely aware of any potential unfairness, he helpfully added, "Ethan, clean up your transformers."
Ethan: I don't have to because I'm still playing with them.
Josh: Oh, do you want to play with mine, too?
Ethan: Yeah.
Josh: You want all of them?
Ethan: Yeah.
Joshua: Mom, I'm not cleaning them up because Ethan's playing with them. May I go outside?

And, he never even skipped a beat.

How We Ended up in Georgia (And Why We’re Leaving)

The year was 2000. The setting was a snow-covered mountain in northern Pennsylvania; the prop, a diamond ring.

David chose to ask me to marry him on this mountain for a very specific reason: he felt I deserved to see his hometown, the town to which we would move when we finished law school the next year, before I agreed to marry him. So, he took me there over a weekend in January when the temperature was a balmy 4 degrees so that I could see the town in all its glory. After meeting several relatives, traveling every street in town (seriously - there are 6 of them), and spending the day sledding on a beautiful pristine hillside, he popped the question. I don't know if it was the effect of the bitter cold on my brain cells, the blinding glare of the diamond ring/snow, or if it was just a momentary delusion in which I saw myself as a brave, adventurous person, but for whatever reason, I said, "Yes, I can live here!"

Now lest you misunderstand me, let me be clear: I agreed to marry David because I love him - a decision I have not regretted in at least the past 48 hours. (I jest, I jest!) It was not my answer to the "Will you marry me?" part that would come to haunt me; it was the "Can you live here?" part.

I should give you a little background about myself at this point. I tried to go away on a summer-long mission trip to Hungary when I was 16. I lasted 5 days. I started college at Auburn but transferred home after a semester. (In reality, my intent was to transfer to a Christian school, but it never happened. I finished my degree at CSU, which does not stand for Colorado State.) I finally succeeded at the summer missions thing the summer after I graduated from college, during which I lived for an entire summer in a warehouse/church in inner-city Chicago. I lasted the whole summer and loved it. However, the complete story is that I flew home for a weekend after one week so that I could walk in my college graduation, returned home 3 weeks after that because I needed semi-emergency surgery, and traveled to California to be my cousin's maid of honor during a few weeks after that. So, assuming there are about 10 weeks in the summer, I still managed to spend a total of almost 2 weeks with my family during that time. A few days before I was to leave for law school in Virginia Beach, my family and some friends got together to pray for me and bless me before I left. My big brother seemed skeptical that I would really go. I said, "Ben, I'm going. I'm packed! I have an apartment!" He said, "Yeah, but you haven't left yet." That statement held more meaning than he intended.

I did, indeed, leave that week and spent three fabulous years living in Virginia Beach. I made the closest friends of my entire life (all you have to do is call my name, and I'll be there . . . on the next train . . .) and never for a minute wished I wasn't there.

It was halfway through our second year that David proposed. I was still doing great then. We got married the summer before our final year of law school. The first few months, still great. And, then . . . downhill fast. I was suddenly gripped by an overwhelming, paralyzing fear of moving to Pennsylvania. I sunk into a depression, cried at the mere thought, much less mention, of moving there and being away from my family for even longer than I had already been. I just could not do it, and I was falling apart. Those of you who are married can imagine what a joyful first year of marriage this made for David and me. Let's just say we have great empathy for couples who struggle.

So, I was a wee bit apprehensive about moving to PA after graduation. You know, in the sense that the Sahara desert is a wee bit warm. As I said, the mere thought or mention of it would reduce me to tears, and since it was our final year of law school, there was of course, a LOT of talk about it. We had to apply to take the bar exam in whatever state we would be moving to, so I spent our last semester getting together the materials needed to apply to the PA state bar (which consists of your birth certificate, your driving record, your criminal record, your blood samples, your firstborn, etc.). I had talked David into agreeing to take the GA bar, too, but we could not take them at the same time because the days overlapped. (Most bar exams are 2-day affairs, given at approximately the same time.) The exams are offered only twice a year - in July and February - so we agreed we would take the PA bar in July and the GA bar in Feb.

Here's where things got a little better (ie, I got my way): because studying for the bar exam is theoretically full-time work and we had to move out of our university apartment when we graduated in May, we had no place to live. So, my parents agreed that we could live with them for the summer while we studied for the bar exam. We flew to PA in July to take the exam . . . but exam results are not issued until October. So, now what do to? Getting a job as a lawyer is tough when you don't have a law license yet, so that left us from late July to late October with little employment opportunities. We weren't in PA to look for jobs there, and we hadn't even taken the GA bar exam yet, so looking for legal jobs here was pretty impossible, too. By August we realized we needed to do something to put bread on the table and move out of my parents' house. Seeing as how David had gotten an oh-so-marketable political science degree, the job-hunting was pretty much left to me since I had a teaching degree and certificate and a yaer of teaching experience pre-law school to boot. So, I got a job teaching 7th grade grammar. (Grammar I love; 7th graders, not so much. No offense, Mal and Grant!)

Boy this story is getting long, huh? So, the teaching job committed us to GA for the year. By then end of that year, we had obtained law licenses in both PA and GA, David had gotten a job with a firm here, and I was pregnant! During this time, David was still knocking on doors (figuratively) in PA from time to time, but nothing was opening. So, he ended up in the DA's office, I had a baby and then went to work part-time for a law firm. Over the next three years, we would have three children, I would become a stay-at-home mom, and David would leave the DA's office to work for the firm he is still with today. (Our time there, sadly, overlapped by only a couple of months before I left to stay at home.)

During all this time, up until Fall of 2006, I would hear him on the phone with his dad in the other room talking about plans for living and working in PA, and I would fall apart all over again. (David's dad graduated from law school with us. He and David went to law school together with the intent to open their own firm afterward; call me the monkey-wrench.) I spent the first six years of our marriage living, quite literally, in abject fear of moving to PA. I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to live near my family, have my mom to help with my kids, be here to watch my nieces and nephew grow up, have all the comforts and familiarites of my hometown at my fingertips, and last but not least, live within 1/2 hr of actual stores and restaurants! Any talk of PA left me shaken, afraid, and quite honestly bitter and angry. It made much more sense to me that we stay here since I have siblings and David does not. His parents needed to just move to GA to be close to their grandchildren since ours are the only ones they have. Makes sense, doesn't it? Meanwhile, David and his parents kept playing the "God card" - they felt like God wanted them to live there and that we were "supposed to" move there at some point. Thanks a lot - how can you argue with the God card, right?

So, after six years of marriage here I was resenting David for wanting to put me through the pain of leaving my family, resenting his parents for expecting us to do that, and pretty much creating a mile-wide chasm between myself and my husband. It would have made sense during this time for me to have prayed for God to change my heart about the whole thing . . . to help me desire the things my husband desired, to give me peace about following my husband and supporting him in his goals and plans. Plans, he wouldn't hesitate to remind me, that he fully disclosed when he took me to that mountain and proposed all those years before. He had wanted to make sure I would be able to live in that tiny frozen speck in the mountains, and I had said I could. How frustrating this must have been for him, I cannot imagine.

Despite my fear and resentment, for reasons unbeknownst to me, I suggested in the Fall of 06 that we take a family trip to David's hometown. We had not been there since we got engaged, and none of his family had seen any of our children. (Except his parents, but they have been living in Harrisburg - about 4 hrs from the hometown - since after law school, so that was where we always visited.) We drove to Harrisburg first and spent a couple of days at his parents' house. Then we headed up into the mountains.

I was prepared for battle. I fully expected David to hail the virtues of the town the entire time we were there and to try to convince me that it was where we should live. I was ready with my defense. My guard was up, and I would not let him penetrate it. Bring it on, honey, I know this is what you're going to do.

Nope. Silence. We were there for three days, and in a display of probably the wisest self-restraint anyone has ever shown, David said not one word about moving there. Not one word. I was stunned.

But, Someone else spoke to me instead. David's arguments I could resist. His mom and dad's arguments I could thwart. But, there is One whose words cannot be resisted no matter how hard we try. Over the course of the three days we were there, God and God alone, totally and miraculously changed my heart. I saw the town and his family with new eyes. I would be okay. God would go with me, and I would be fine. He gave me a peace that is truly beyond understanding.

God was steadily working in my heart the entire time we were there, but I didn't say anything to David until our final day. On the morning we were packing to leave, we were standing outside (in the bitter October cold and snow!), and I said to him, "If you really feel like this is where we need to be, I'm okay with that." You could have knocked him over with a feather! What??!! After six years of crying and hyperventilating when he even mentioned PA, suddenly I was fine with it? We were both utterly amazed. I knew that this peace had come from God and that He had given it to me mercifully. I had not asked for it. I had only ever prayed that God would change David's heart and that we would not have to go. Never had I asked for my heart to be changed. But, doesn't God always give us what we need even if we're too foolish to ask for it or to recognize it?

That was two years ago next month. Yet, here we are in GA. Over the course of the past year I would wonder why God didn't open doors for us to move right after He gave me peace about it, but we would discover the answer to that. If we had moved to his tiny hometown prior to this year, I probably would have died because my life-threatening health condition would almost certainly not have been found in time. Turns out God had us here for a reason, and now that I've had surgery and my health is good, doors are opening and signs are appearing at every turn that let us know the time to go is soon. I could not ask for a sweeter blessing from God than this peace and like-mindedness with my husband. How terrible putting up the for-sale sign would have been if I were still in the state I was in two years ago. How miserable it is to live life full of fear and resentment, and how great and gracious and merciful God is to give us what we need despite our protestations.

So, I was right all along that we ought to be in Georgia, wasn't I? In the end, though, does that really make me right? No. I read a verse during that final semester of law school which convicted me: I Peter 3:5-6, which says, "For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands; just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear." (emphasis mine) That pierced my heart, and I knew then that the right thing to do was to support my husband and to ask God to help us want the same things and to give me courage and peace. But, I didn't. I stubbornly resisted. God did not need me to be bitter and resentful for us to live where He wanted us. He did not need me to stubbornly refuse to submit to my husband and to do everything I could to manipulate circumstances to keep us here. He could have kept us in Georgia without any help from me. I was wrong even if the place was right. Thank God for his mercies that are new every morning.