"I can't believe this is happening"

This is Bill's most oft quoted phrase these days, given what is currently going on in our lives. My most oft quoted phrase is "This is so weird". We keep saying these phrases over and over again because we are on the verge of a change. A pretty big change for all of us.

It can all be blamed on this poem, really...

Disturb us, Lord, when


We are too pleased with ourselves,


When our dreams have come true


Because we dreamed too little,


When we arrived safely


Because we sailed too close to the shore.



Disturb us, Lord, when


With the abundance of things we possess


We have lost our thirst


For the waters of life;


Having fallen in love with life,


We have ceased to dream of eternity


And in our efforts to build a new earth,


We have allowed our vision


Of the new Heaven to dim.



Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,


To venture on wilder seas


Where storms will show Your mastery;


Where losing sight of land,


We shall find the stars.



We ask you to push back


The horizons of our hopes;


And to push back the future


In strength, courage, hope, and love.



This we ask in the name of our Captain,


Who is Jesus Christ.

Sir Francis Drake

These words captured our hearts and, not surprisingly, disturbed us. And so God is giving us new dreams. We are moving on from a life, location and ministry that we love with all of our hearts to follow what we believe with certainty is the voice of the Lord. What a beautiful process it has been to surrender all, to hear God's voice and to have the privilege of following Him. There are plenty of fears about moving to a different part of the country where we will no longer encounter snow, but will indeed encounter reptiles and bugs of all sorts. Ew. So many unknowns. So many losses.

We know what role we will be filling, but honestly we don't know a lot what that will look like from day to day. The cadence of our daily, weekly, monthly and yearly lives will be changing. We leave the state of my youth, the campus where we met and the home of our beloved Cornhuskers. We leave family, friends, and a church we love. We are leaving a home that has not only housed our physical bodies for 9 years, but it has been the stage for our memories to be played out on. We leave a home that we have loved and where we have loved for a home we don't yet know. But in all this, we have been consciously aware that this is not our home.

All of this "disturbing" has been a glorious unsettling that has left my heart feeling, strangely, settled in Him.