Change

It's been so long since I've written in my little blog! I miss you all! Brad and I have wonderfully busy spending time with family, and we've also been busy dealing with some changes that have come up unexpectedly and quickly - changes I want to finally tell you all about.

The change that has happened is, we are moving. We are leaving wonderful Florida and moving to the northeast.

To keep a short story short, just a few weeks ago, Brad was contacted by a company in Pittsburgh called Tetra Tech about a group that they are starting and would like him to lead. He flew up and met the team, and we had to make a decision - quickly! We were surprised and a little overwhelmed at first, but as we settled into the idea, we both felt a real peace about the decision.

So, we have decided to take this opportunity, and we're moving the second weekend in August. We have such mixed feelings - we're excited, but we're also sad and a little scared. We are sad because we love Gainesville so much. We love our church, our friends, our house, our family so close by, our neighborhood, our schedules, Florida's climate, and Gainesville's wonderful people. We are nervous because everything is unknown. Where will we live? Will we find good friends? How will our dogs survive in the city? How will we survive a snowy winter?

But, the Lord's timing was good, and he prepared our heart for this move long before Brad received the first phone call. Brad has long been wanting something different, and as I wrote my thesis this summer, spending long hours in a lab behind a computer screen, I started wanting something different, too. I started longing for something more fulfilling and fitting for my personality. So, we are excited because this is going to be an adventure for our little family, a chance to try something totally different and to step out of our comfort zone.

If you will, please do pray for us. We're trying to take care of all the practical things like selling our house and packing up while also trying to soak up and enjoy all the things that we love about this wonderful place. We're practicing resting in the fact that the Lord truly is in control while also anxiously anticipating all that is to come.

So, in the spirit of Pittsburgh, I leave you with a wonderful passage from one of my all-time favorite authors who also grew up there, Annie Dillard. Weirdly enough, this passage somehow also describes this moment for me...



"And leaving... we find ourselves on the receiving end of a tiny, final event, a piece of unexpected wind.

A ripple of wind comes down from the woods and across the clearing toward us. We see a wave of shadow and gloss where the short grass bends and the cottage eaves tremble. It hits us in the back. It is a single gust, a sport, a rogue breeze out of the north, as if some reckless, impatient wind has bumped the north door open on its hinges and let out this acre of scent familiar and forgotten, this cool scent of tundra, and of November. Fall! Who authorized this intrusion? Stop or I'll shoot. It is an entirely misplaced air - fall, that I have utterly forgotten, that could be here again, another fall, and here it is only July.

I thought I was younger, and would have more time. The gust crosses the river and blackens the water where it passes, like a finger closing slats"

Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk