The In-Between

Will and I have been married for six years. So far in our marriage, our life has been separated into 2-year segments. We lived in Oxford for two years while I finished college and Will worked with the Park and Recreation Department. Then we moved to Nigeria for two years. After Nigeria, we have lived in Bloomington for two years. Due to the nature of those life events, we have had transition times between each of them. These transition times are times when we have moved out of wherever our home was for the previous stage and are living temporarily with family (and we are super grateful to have families who allows us to do this over and over again :)).

We are currently in one of those "in-between" stages. We both finished our jobs in June and have been in a period of preparation. We are living with Will's parents in Bloomington. When we moved out of the house we had been living in for the past year, we got rid of all of the furniture and large items that we owned. We also purged a large amount of what we had and narrowed everything we had down into what we want to store here in the States (which is very minimal) and what we want to take with us to Africa.
We then moved all of those items into the room we are staying in at Will's parents house. I'll tell you what, you don't think you have much stuff until you try to fit it all in one room... haha. Looking at our piles of stuff reminds me each day of this "in-between" stage that we have found ourselves in yet again. The piles are reminders that we are in the up-rooting process. What I am learning in this time, however, is that the beauty of God is that He is with us in whatever stage we find ourselves in. We do not have to be settled in order for Him to be with us or in order to have His peace. He is peace. No matter where we are on our journey, He is with us.

"You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me." Psalm 139:5

What a great God! He is not only with us, but behind and before us! Another version of this verse says, "You go before me and follow me, you place your hand of blessing on my head". Hallelujah! How beautiful is that?! God not only is already in South Sudan preparing the way for us, but He is with us now in this transition time and He will be there after we leave. This reminds me that there is great purpose in this time. Yes, I might twitch a little bit every time I look at the piles around our room, but this time is good. God is here with us and He has us in this transition for a reason. So, my prayer right now is that I will not wish this transition time away, but will look for God IN this time. I pray that I will see the purpose of this time and will allow God to meet me in the midst of the piles of stuff. I pray that I will sense God's "hand of blessing on my head" and that I will be able to steward that blessing well for the sake of the Kingdom- even if I'm in transition.