It’s Monday morning.  The first day of a brand new week in a brand new chapter of life and a brand new zip code.

Last week was heart-wrenching.  In a good way.  There’s something about packing up your entire house – all of your belongings gathered over a span of ten years – and categorizing it all.  Scrawling on the side of a box with an oversized sharpie some vague description of the treasures inside.  As the moving truck filled, Josh’s anxiety grew.  Will it all fit?  As the house emptied, my anxiety grew.  Will I always remember?

A few days before, I hopped onto the USPS website to change our address.  Ten simple words stopped me in my tracks:

Okay, let’s get started.  Is this move permanent or temporary?

I selected the “permanent” option, then held my breath to hold back the tears as a movie reel of memories began.

Like the days right before we moved into the house and we were praying over it, room by room.  And I had such a clear picture of stepping into the house from the garage.  As the door opened, and I lifted my foot to step in, the ground was replaced by a beautiful sparkling sea of water.  The depths of My Spirit is in this place, I heard Him whisper.

That vision is now replaced by a physical sparkling sea, right off my balcony as I type this.  The depths of My Spirit is here too.

Or the time that we painted our kitchen and dining room the perfect shade of mustard yellow.  I picked it for the name: First Anniversary.  We moved into the house three months after our first anniversary.

This move came three months after our tenth anniversary.

I thought about setting up the office in the back bedroom when I first started my business.  Then moving it to the other back bedroom a year or two later. And finally settling in the bonus room after a surprise studio conversion by my sneaky husband while I was traveling for two weeks.  The back bedroom down the hall on the right… it was always supposed to be the nursery.  We never talked about it.  I never decorated it (either physically or in my head).  It was never an official thing.  But tucked away somewhere deep inside of me .. I had assigned that room.

Last Sunday, as I did the final walk through of our empty house with friends bustling downstairs loading the last of the odds and ends, painting over holes in the wall, and getting their hands dirty in good old fashioned acts of service, I snuck into that bedroom.  And I sat against the wall.  And acknowledged the heartache of an unfulfilled dream.  The crib would go there.  At that angle.  And the dresser would be here.  And it would be painted this color, with this rocker, and there would have been countless sleepless nights.

I didn’t stay long.  There’s a slippery slope between acknowledging sorrow and wallowing in it.  And then I got up.  Wiped my face.  Walked out.  Shut the door on the empty bedroom rich with symbolism.  And walked back down the dark hallway and down the stairs for the last time.

Surrendering it all again.  Every single piece of it.  Because the depths of His Spirit is here too.  In this new place.  And the joy is palpable.