Home!

This past week life made the 180 we have been waiting for. The girls and I  went from straining to find ways to fill our days constructively, to needing to make an effort to take a break so that we wouldn’t burn out.

Early last week we were notified that our household goods had arrived. So, our stuff was here,waiting for a delivery date, and we were still waiting for the house. We were told that the house should be ready by the end of the month, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

Last Thursday we were invited to a Harvard neighbor’s house for coffee. While there I walked over to the house to see how things were coming along. In God’s perfect timing the facilities manager was there, and I was able to talk to him about moving in. I was surprised to hear that we could move in if we didn’t mind an empty house and sleeping bags. The house wasn’t going to be furnished until Monday or so. We were so ready to be in our home that I considered it, but God had better plans.

We hung around Harvard for most of the day, while my neighbor graciously let me run a few loads of laundry. While waiting for our clothes to dry, I took Jenna back over to see the house and that is when I met James, the manager for our housing area. He was gracious and apologetic about the whole situation. I told him that we were fine, but that our shipment had arrived and that we were eager to get into the house. Within the hour this housing angel made some phone calls and not only got us the approval to move in THE NEXT DAY, but called the warehouse and scheduled our shipment to be delivered. I couldn’t believe it!

We went back to the hotel, quickly threw our stuff into suitcases and enjoyed one last night of room service. The next day the girls and I loaded up the car and said goodbye to hotel living. When we got to the house the cleaning crew was finishing up. They were mopping themselves out the door as we were lugging our suitcases up the steps. Within 20 minutes of emptying the car our shipment showed up. Everything. All of it.

When we packed out we had two shipments. One was going on the boat and would take around three months. We sent that one in May. The other was flying air freight and would hopefully get here a couple weeks after we did. We sent that one about a week before we left. As both shipments arrived together I had to laugh about all of the careful sorting I had done.

I thought of Proverbs 16:9, “In his hear a man plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps.” We had carefully laid out our plans for this move. It didn’t go according to our plan and that’s okay, because most of life doesn’t and my girls are learning right a long with me how to look for the good, choose to laugh when you want to cry and that really all we can control is our attitude.