It’s Almost Time to Go

In less than two weeks we leave Iowa for a distant land. Okay, that might be a little dramatic, but it is a long ways from Iowa, and it is a different culture and climate. Not one we are unfamiliar with because Jen and I have both lived in New Mexico before, but our girls have never lived there. We’ve spent a lot of time in the Land of Enchantment with vacations and such, but this will be real.

It is a beautiful and remote place that will take some adjustment. For now, it’s exciting, and it’s scary. We are leaving twenty-eight years behind us, and the girls are departing all they’ve ever known. They are anxious, I’m sure, and not surprising.

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and ,in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” – Genesis 12:1-3

I won’t attempt to carry this narrative too far, because I’m no Abram. I can, however, relate. Abram is not a young guy anymore. Where I see the blessing here is that we’ve been confident throughout this process that God was calling us to New Mexico, and it was more than just circumstantial evidence. Did it seem providential?

God uses providence to accomplish His will, and while I don’t take it to mean I always understand God’s providence, I can look back and say, “wow, you know, that sure seems providential.”  We trust the Lord has plans for us as we travel to this far place and look forward to new adventures along the path we are walking.

So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. – Genesis 12:4-5

So, we are setting out, we are following the instructions given to us, as best as we can discern them, and we trust the Lord has a land awaiting us. We never know what is ahead, but we can trust it to our God to richly give in the way He sees it is best.

If you think about us, please pray for us. Pray, we continue the path the Lord has shown us, pray we continue to trust Him, and that we remain faithful to call that we have been called.

We leave a lifetime of friends behind, a precious time of blessing and trials. We never trust in those, simply rejoice that we’ve had an opportunity to walk through them and that we’ve walked through them with those we love.   We will miss so many, it’s impossible to name them all, but we look forward to those that will impact our lives in the future, and thankful for those that have impacted us in the past.

Kevin