Exciting Weekend Ahead: 4 Months into the Move

When it was back in late September/ early October, our whole family was in the midst of the moving struggle. See, the thing about blooming where you are planted is that the first months, even a year, you are literally in a dark muddy hole with the earthworms and the rocks. Plus, did I mention the mud?

Moving is terrifying and exciting and new, and well it’s hard, okay, it’s plain ol’ hard.

But around that time that I mentioned, friends and family began to announce their visits. Some were even overnight stays! I watched my calendar for late October/early November fill up, and I thought, “Hmmmm. I feel like these dear people are being sent to me to cheer me up.”

At first, my selfish little head thought it was all about me. “Maybe this is what I’ll need to get my act together.”

Now it occurs to me that I am not the only one here who benefits from these visits! I’ve witnessed the benefit to the whole family. This wasn’t for ME, but for US.

The first visit was a whole family of OUR friends.

Our oldest children have grown up together since age 5, and even when we live far away, we see them every year. It’s quite remarkable. I was excited to see them, and I especially enjoyed watching the boys happily bouncing on the trampoline with their old friends.

There is something downright sacred about old friends. We should never take people we can be comfortable with for granted, people who know where we’ve come from, the real us, thorns and all, and yet they hang around. It’s such a beautiful thing.

The second visit was Alan’s parents.

We all looked forward to it. Nonna and I shopped until I could not even walk a step further. The boys got to take Nonna trick-or-treating with them. I could see how much it brightened up Alan’s days to have his family here. He came home early from work everyday, unheard of for Mr. I Love to Work. Best of all for me personally, Nonna helped with homework duty. Hallelujah!

Isn’t it sweetly wonderful how happy children are about seeing their grandparents? They are instant rock stars.

The third visit comes Friday. You’ll never guess who is coming.

Are you on pins and needles? Ha!

My cousin Amber!!!!!!!

I’ve been after her for a visit ever since her mother’s funeral last year. My plan was that we’d still live in D.C., and I’d take her to see all the monuments and Smithsonian museums. However, we moved, so we have to drive a little further for the sight-seeing, but who cares!!! Amber’s coming!! Hurray!!!!

Don’t you love it when you’re all deep in the planting dirt, and you get glimpses of sunlight as you start to break on up through the earth?

Our sprouts are growing. Each stalk of our beings is figuring out where the room to stretch out to the sun is. Before you know it, there will be new leaves, buds, and even flowers. Maybe we won’t even wait for spring. We’ll be like the early daffodils of late February, always showing up before you were quite expecting them.

It’s been 4 months now since the planting, and there are still days with tears, but this weekend is not for tears. This weekend Amber is coming, and we are going to go exploring. I cannot wait.

²⁰ If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, ^[d]how can he love God whom he has not seen? ²¹ And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

1 John 4:20-21