Moves and Changes

Happy Wednesday!

Last August was kind of a big month for me. We moved into a new house and I took a different direction with this blog. This week marks a year since I started posting more consistently and writing faith-based stuff on here.

On the first Wednesday of last August I wrote a whole post about starting something new. It felt fitting considering I felt like I was starting a new season and since then, God has used this blog in different ways to encourage others and to encourage me as well. This feels kind of like a milestone, so I wanted to take a minute to think back to last August. 

Last Summer we spent a lot of time looking for a new house in the same area we’ve been in for the past ten years and since I didn’t have to do any of the technical stuff, it was actually a lot of fun. I remember getting to go see fancy model homes and drive by already built homes, imagining what life would be like in each of them. Would this be our new home? Would this be our new neighborhood? What would life look like there?

And then… we came across this one. The market was so crazy (and it still is) that if you didn’t buy the house the minute you looked at it, it would be gone. My Mom and Dad went to go see this one on a whim, not thinking they would find our new house here. I remembered they got home and by the next morning this house was ours. There was no time to consider, no time to weigh options. Either we got it then or we didn’t get it at all. And the only reason we did get it is because it was a mess on the inside. The last owners had done a real number on it despite it only being three years old. The carpet was disgusting, the flooring was scratched. The kitchen and bathrooms looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in weeks. Three of the bedrooms upstairs were in various shades of unfortunate colors.

I remember my mom bringing me over here for the first time and telling me to see the potential. Don’t look at the actual house, look at the potential it has. Apparently, I’m not very good at that because I had a hard time looking past the carpet and the brown walls of my new room and everything else. I didn’t see what my mom saw, and I came away unsure and disappointed, thinking maybe this wasn’t the right house. Maybe we should have waited.

And now here we are, a year later and this house feels like home now. It fits my family so much better. We all have actual room, and we can do so much more with the space we have.

A picture from my first week in the new house (back when my closet was clean haha) 

I knew this year that when August came around, I wanted to write about moving into this new house and take time to reflect on how so much as changed in a year. I was in such a different place last August in so many ways. The world was still upside down with the pandemic. Life felt like it would never get back to normal. I was worried about moving out of our old neighborhood and was really sad to leave behind good neighbor friends. My best friend had lived down the street for years and our best family friend’s who are pretty much like family now lived down the street too. Would distance put a dent in our friendships? Would we get to see them as often? Would it all work out? I felt like I was being dramatic at the time, but last August moving into this house felt like stepping into a new season for me. Like I was leaving behind a chapter of my life and moving into a new one.

And oddly enough, that’s sort of exactly what happened. God knew what He was doing. He knew this was the right house for us and His timing was so perfect in giving it to us and moving us when He did. We still see our family friends all the time. The ten minute distance did nothing to change that. But I had to let go of a best friendship during the winter, I stopped going to the college group I had been going to for years and we started going to a new church last summer and I suddenly didn’t have anything that I used to have. No best friend. No youth group. No familiar house or neighbors. I’m thankful to God for giving us this house when He did. I needed the distance and I couldn’t imagine how I would have gotten through what I did if we had stayed in our old house.

God has slowly built everything back up over the course of this year and I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful for this house. For this space we have. For the community we’ve been able to share with friends here. The birthday’s we’ve celebrated in this new house. All of the new memories. The new parks and people we’ve gotten to meet by moving. This house was a true blessing and I just wanted to take a minute this month to stop and appreciate it and think back to last August. To think back to how hard it was to move and how grateful I am now that we did. He answered prayers with this house and that’s something I don’t want to forget.

I’ve moved a lot throughout my life, and I believe God uses us in every house we’ve lived in. He always has something new for us in each one. New things to learn, new experiences to have, new people to meet, new places to go, new memories to share and new words to write (for me anyways haha) and that has all been the case with this house even though it’s in the same area we’ve lived in for ten years. You’d be surprised the difference of perspective and the different parts of town you discover when you move even just ten minutes from your old house. And last August that was exactly what I needed: a new perspective. Moving helped me see things I wouldn’t have noticed if we had stayed where we were. Moving gave me the courage to say goodbye to things and people that I had been holding onto for too long.

I’ll finish this long post by saying, shaking things up is scary and hard. I don’t like change. But sometimes it’s necessary and can actually be a real blessing. So, if you’re in a season of change and have a big move or shift in front of you, know that good will come out of it. You might look back a year later and notice things you hadn’t seen in the moment. Change is obviously needed if it’s knocking on your front door and standing in front of you and I promise you, God will use that change for good.