A few mornings before we moved, Dwayne sat down with me and said something like, "We should think about what we want to do with this house, what it will be for, what we want the new house to mean."
He does this at work, leading teams of people to consider their purposes and goals and families need to do the same thing sometimes. He said he had a few ideas, but wanted to hear my mind about it.
Within three minutes, we had decided on the three things we knew this house would be for! The words in his head were the same exact words in mine! We were totally in sync and I just knew it was because God was leading us by His Spirit. As well-suited as Dwayne and I are for one another, we don't often agree that perfectly. The three words we agree upon were:
Stewardship: because God was giving us something simply bigger than we had before and we knew we would have to grow in order to care for it as well as we should. And because a big part of my job as a homeschool mom is to teach my kids how to live real life from making their own breakfasts, and perhaps more importantly, cleaning up their own breakfast messes, to organizing their days to accommodate all the work they are responsible for at that time in their learning journey and then to leave room for all the rest of life they want to live. Stewardship was the right word to express all that.
Relationships: because our number one, main reason for moving was to shorten Dwayne's commute and make more time together, so our marriage will be stronger, and Dwayne will have more time with our kids. Our family will also be moving to the Danbury area soon. Relationships with Dwayne's brother, my sister-in-law, and my nieces and nephews who are coming here are the close second reason why we relocated. People are the most precious thing. Relationships with family and friends and God Himself are the main reason behind everything we do. I think relationships, with God and with other people, are the main reason we even exist on this planet. One catechism says we exist "to know God and enjoy Him forever." So God must have people He wants us to meet and friendships He wants us to grow in and around Redding that our place in Waterbury would not facilitate. So relationships was another obvious choice for us!
And Experiences: because our children will actually grow up here, and most of their childhood experiences will be in this place now. And my oldest is just old enough to start youth group. The timing of that is not lost on me. Knowing how youth group events shaped my life, God must have plans for her here. And we've got windows that allow nature to interrupt us all day long and miles of trails right outside our front door. To me, that's God's way of saying, "Pst! Come see this!" or "Get your shoes on. Let's go for a walk." That will mean changing my homeschool style to accommodate more nature study and my workout schedule to accommodate all the time my legs and heart and lunges will spend hiking. Homeschool and exercise are two of the things I thought I had perfected, basically. Ha! God likes to humble me. So changing my "perfect" plans will be necessary joy, because we do intend to experience all the truth, goodness, and beauty God has in store for us here.
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