spilling my guts

I haven’t kept up on here very well lately… mostly because I couldn’t write about the main thing I wanted to write about. Lance was offered (and he accepted) the position as the youth minister at Pleasant Ridge Church of Christ in Arlington (the church where Lance grew up). This job comes as a tremendous blessing from the Lord in that it is everything we’ve been praying for. Lance will get to be the youth minister for an entire program instead of just having kids for a couple of years, which is what he’s wanted and prayed for. Their offer was also a very generous one, and it will hopefully allow me to fulfill my dreams of being a stay-at-home mom when we have kids. There were lots of other benefits, such as retirement matching, that we don’t get currently but will have at PR, so we are incredibly thankful for the offer. (I feel the need to say, though, that we have no issues at all with Legacy and could/would very easily have stayed for a very long time. There is no bitterness or ickiness in this move… there’s nothing but rainbows and lollipops.) We are staying at Legacy through April 18th (so we will do LTC, Easter, Resurrection Renewal, youth retreat, Acapella concert, etc.). We’ll start at PR on April 25th. We are going to try to get our house on the market fairly quickly, and we want to move down to Arlington to be close to the church… but we really aren’t sure what our timetable on all of that will be.

I have to say, though, that this transition time has been really painful so far. All of our friends have been SO supportive, which has been such a blessing – and far beyond what we could have hoped for. But then we told the kids and the church Sunday morning, and that really broke my heart. I had one girl bawling her eyes out hugging me… saying, “I just feel like I’m losing everyone I love.” My, there were lots of tears. I mean, really… lots of tears. It hurt a lot.

So basically, here’s how I feel right now:

I am beyond thankful that the Lord has provided this opportunity. I am in disbelief that the offer was as generous as it was. I am nervous about Lance being even busier than he is already. I am terrified of trying to sell our house. I am dreading the thought of moving. I am (probably) way too optimistic in where I think we can live in Arlington . I am kind of a fan of looking at houses online. I am overwhelmed by the number of details there are to think of between now and then. I am exhausted from all the crying. I am saddened at the thought of leaving our first house and our church home and our young marrieds friends. I am trusting (or trying to trust) that if God has led us this far, he’s not going to back out now. I am grateful for family and friends that let me talk to them about all of this. I am anxious about starting a new church and having to make new friends there. I am stressed about the number of things that will happen between now and June 1st. I am distracted by all the many thoughts that I cannot seem to quiet in my head. I am wondering how many meals I can make out of the extra 2 pounds of taco meat I made for small group Sunday night (I am STILL a bad estimator). I am completely lacking in coping skills at the moment (one of the items for an outfit I wanted to wear today wasn’t clean, and I stood in my closet so long that Lance finally came in and said, “Honey, what are you doing?”). I am amazed by my husband, who somehow taught class, told the kids he was leaving, gave countless hugs, walked to big church, led singing, made the announcement there, and led a closing song and STILL held it together better than I did. I am thankful that he puts up with the crazy emotions I’m experiencing right now from all of this stress and exhaustion. I am overwhelmed by the number of things I need to remember but terrified to make a to-do list because I do NOT want to see it all in writing. I am fearful of change… and yet, I am at peace because I am fully confident that the Lord has guided (and is guiding) our steps.

And, if I’m really honest, that’s like the Cliff’s Notes version of how I am truly feeling… but I’d end up writing something roughly the length of Tolstoy’s War & Peace if I tried to delve into ALL of it.

I know this is already long, but one more thing.

I am crazy in love with Lance, and I feel SO honored to be his wife. He is incredible at his “job” (if indeed you can call it a job… it’s more of a calling, I think). So incredible that not only the teens will miss him – we had young families and middle marrieds and primetimers telling us what a blessing he has been to Legacy and how much they will miss him. So incredible that about 10 different kids had facebook statuses (statii??) about how wonderful he is and how much they will miss him when we finally checked facebook on Sunday night. So incredible that he’s gotten constant emails and texts and phone calls about how special he is and how much he will be missed and about specific things he’s meant to different people. So incredible, in fact, that apparently PR burst into applause during their second service when they announced they’d hired him. So incredible that he was scared to even make the announcement on Sunday because Sunday was the birthday of a boy in the Legacy youth group that he cares deeply about. So incredible that he checked on individual kids that he was afraid would take it especially hard. So incredible that HE checked on ME repeatedly on Sunday. He’s amazing. If you don’t know him, you’re missing out. I’m just sayin’.

And to close – the verse the Lord keeps bringing to me over and over again – “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” – Exodus 14:14