Announcing Upcoming Series: "The Uprooting"
Catching you up on life lately, moving, delays, and an upcoming FTT series!
Lately everything has been getting pushed back a week, including this announcement for my upcoming series!
To catch you up on the chaos of life at the moment, April 5th, my husband headed to Pakistan for a mission trip with a small team from our church. They were due back April 17 but just so happened to be passing through Dubai airport at the time of the historic flooding that hit the city and airport. After an extremely grueling time being stuck in an airport waiting area on the brink of a riot, they made it back, tired, bedraggled, and full of stories, on April 21st.
We had been planning to list our house for sale April 23rd, but this needed to be pushed back a week because there was zero chance we would have it photo ready or prepped for showings. I don’t think we quite anticipated how much work it was going to take, but thanks to adrenaline and a whole lot of loving last-minute support from friends and family armed with yard tools and cleaning supplies, we got it on the market yesterday, May 1st.
As a result, my Substack plans are getting pushed back a week as well! But back to the moving thing…
If you haven’t already heard, we are “Facebook official” moving to the great city of Chicago this summer where we will be joining our friends at Trinity Church and starting a new chapter. While we have prayed and considered this specific move for the past year, this overall moving thing has been years in the making, full of false starts and confusing turns. Now that it’s really happening, I can see the many ways in which God used these years to prepare me for this.
In the waiting and wondering, I thought about moving and transition a lot, probably to an unhelpful degree. But that’s the tricky part when God drops a (definitely metaphorical) bug in your ear about moving, over ten years ago.
As a result of all that pondering, mostly while gardening and staring out of windows, I have a collection of thoughts centered around gardening metaphors for moving called “The Uprooting”. These are also things I believe God placed in my heart (and head) to help guide me through the transition. I’ll be pausing my normal rotation to get these out into the world over the next 5 weeks, beginning the end of next week. I hope these pieces of writing bless and inspire you as you go through your own transitions, whether big or small, present or future.
Transition is certainly hard, so we need all the encouragement we can get (I hope to pass some onto you through this series). To give you an idea, I woke up early yesterday, anxious about the sale. I plonked myself on the couch and prayed with my husband. I think I cried at least three times as we named dear neighbors and friends we have built relationships with over the years, and asked God to plant people in our place who would carry on where we left off. I also sniffled my way through Philippians 3:7-14:
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him…
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
It’s hard to let go, but God calls us to press ahead. If you think of it, please pray for our family; for jobs to come through (a couple are stuck in the pipeline), a new place to call home, and steady faith and courage as we go!
A few months ago, I came across this image of the famous bridges in Chicago. Twice a year, in Spring and Fall, they open at set intervals for a couple of months to allow stored sailboats to make their way through. I felt like God said He would make a way for us to get to where we need to be, but in the process, we may feel the sting of things being cut off or suspended, at least for a time. We do feel that deeply, but I’m assured that God is going to open many bridges, and I’m excited to share those things with you when He does!
OK, I think you’re fully updated now and hopefully excited to read through “The Uprooting” series, starting next week. Thanks FTT followers and friends! I’m glad you’re in this with me!
Love this ❤️