I think it was about a month ago that I told one friend "should be this weekend that I can get pics of our new place to show you"… and it hasn't happened yet.
And it hasn't been because we're not crazy grateful or totally smitten with our new home. Yesterday morning Isaiah woke up early and I had some good talking time with him in the living room and he started off telling me he likes this place two times more than anywhere else we've lived. Then he looked toward the kitchen and saw the surprise… Daddy and I assembled three new bar stools for our breakfast bar the night before… and as we sat up there together, he upped it to "five times more…" Vivi said the same thing to me today: "I love our new home!" We are all just so amazed that we could live in a place that we enjoy as much as this! The Lord has blessed us exceedingly…
I mentioned in the last post that this move was a hard one for me. It was much harder than I expected. I was comparing it in my mind to our last move across town from one apartment to a nearly identical apartment, both of them were perfectly ready to move into. We were out of boxes in two days. This was different. This place was in pretty good condition, but it did need work. And there were dozens of things invisible to me at first, that needed fixing and tweaking…. like raising the bathroom mirror (and fixtures) that cut Matt's reflection off near his nostrils and the bathrooms that were just small rooms with a sink, toilet and shower head…. no arrangement for a place to keep things dry or a space for towels or toothbrush. The first ten days of living here were the roughest. Our neighbor asked us why we didn't do repairs before we moved in? Well, we didn't have a home. Truly, this apartment was not a place for a family to stay then…. but we did. (And we're still alive.)
I hope you don't hear this as complaining… I'm just filling out the background of the story of my tiredness in recovering from this move. And there have been a few more hard things I can share about later.
The six of us are getting in pretty good shape though. Did I tell you that our place is on the sixth floor of a building with no elevator? Yea, perhaps that was another tiny factor in my flabby stamina level. And we're picking up speed with homeschool hours every day again too. So I've been tired….
But I got even more down than any of that justified. I was tired and I think the bottom of my heart kinda gave out…. depressed. The thought of taking a few pictures made me want to cringe (I'm pretty sure I cried when Matt asked me once if I wanted to bring my camera…) I had no strength for it, hardly any energy for smiling or laughing with my kiddos. The Lord has graciously awakened me this week to see that the cause of my tiredness isn't the messy house (when I let that eat at my soul, I'd get more tired and more sad because I didn't have the strength to clean and organize my tired sadness away.)
This week, more days have been happier, heart healthier days for me and I am profoundly grateful. So grateful for praying friends, encouragers in my life, and for all the benefit of a simple change of focus: from the cause of my pain (or so I thought) or the Source of my healing and hope? More of Him who is my all…. more of His peace, more of His presence, more clinging to His promises… that's what I was needing.
So…. all that to say… the pictures Are Still Coming. Thank you for bearing with us dear friends!
I can tell you this, I am so excited for my place here. I was praying for an apartment that might have a tiny "yang tai" (indoor porch-like area, usually where people hang laundry to dry) off our room that I could make into my place…. a little place to read and pray and journal and blog. The Lord has exceeded all my wildest wonderings…
I'm so excited to write in, to share from, the place the Lord has given me in our new home. And it shouldn't be too much longer til I can finally write a bit more and take some good pics and post them to share with you. Today I even got our room moved out of survival mode: the one month mark of being here. (The last hurdle: all the boxes and heap of clothes in our still unfurnished room! Tubs under our bed are working great as a dresser...) Thank you so much dear friends for checking on us here even when I've been so slow to post lately…. I hope there will be much loveliness to share with you very soon now!
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