Moving on...

" For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord... to give  you a future and a hope " 

Jeremiah 29:11

I have looked pack over the past 15 months and we have experienced so much of which I have often wondered how God's plan could contain goodness amongst so much sadness and hurt and anger I had felt. Of course all I had to do was quickly look into the faces of my beautiful, healthy children and know his plan for us contained so much more than just goodness but hope in the future.

Over the past several months there had been lose talk around Drew's work about him possibly making a move into a management position at a different location. Of course as I was getting prepared to welcome our 3rd baby all I could do to keep my sanity was to put my head down and ignore any ideas of us uprooting the life I had come to be used to and moving. Drew and I had been praying that God's will would be made clear and had decided to table any discussions about work and moving until after we welcomed Rory. As we sat in the hospital two days after welcoming Rory, Drew got a congratulatory call from his boss and the proposal to move to a manager's position in Odessa,TX. God was making his plans for our family abundantly clear. It helps that Lane & Neeley's family lives in Midland, TX the adjacent town to where Drew would work. Our heart's desire since they moved from Amarillo has been to be back together to raise our kids along side each other and experience life with one another. So two weeks after getting Rory home we made our first trip with her to Odessa/Midland for Drew to check out the branch and see if he would want to take on the manager's role. 

I tend to be a creature of habit and can get extremely overwhelmed with the idea of change, even good change that I have prayed for. Looking back over some of the biggest and ultimately best "changes" in my life have come with so much speed and force that I simply wasn't able to try and stop them. It has been no different with this one. After working out some details and less than two months since having a new baby we have a start date for Drew's new position and have just put a contract on our first house in a completely different city.

I am incredibly proud of Drew and his work ethic to be given this opportunity. It is so telling of the man he is that in 6 years he has gone from warehouse driver to branch manager. There is no doubt in my mind that this move will be life changing for our family and bring us so much joy and happiness for the future. However there is a lot of sadness about leaving this place I have called home for the past 10 years. Not only are we as of now leaving behind family, hopefully Tammy, Kelsey, and Nana will be coming to Midland soon after we move, we are leaving great friends and a church community who has loved our babies since the day they were born. I am also leaving the places that I have the most recent memories of my Mom and I together, our driving routes, our ice cream stops, the places we used to walk and hold hands. 

So as we look to the future with uncertainty and anxiety about how it will all work, with pride and fear of owning our first home, with excitement of being with our buddies again. We are also reflecting on all that Amarillo has meant to us and the familiarity of this town and the people in it.