I will show you

So, maybe you already know that we are moving.  Leaving the house we've lived in for 24 years.  We accidentally sold it really fast - well, God did that.  I blogged about making the decision to put the house on the market and boom!  Suddenly I was hearing from people, "Can we come look at your house?"  My realtor, who had just given me a three page list of Things To Do To Make This House Sellable, did not approve of this.  But some of them were friends, so I let them come over and gave them a tour.  And one of these couples said, "We love it.  We want it.  Throw away your list."  So we signed a contract with them on the day before we left for an overseas trip to Bologna, London and Cape Town.

It was an amazing trip, but now we are back, and it's time to pack.  Arley said, "Just start somewhere," so yesterday I pulled out all my non-essential dishes and got out the boxes and paper.  And then I sat down on the floor and cried, I was so overwhelmed.  Thank God for a sister-in-law who recognizes panic when she hears it and comes to the rescue.  So now we have begun the dismantling.

Everyone wants to know where we are moving.  So do I!  Mmmk, yeah, we don't have a clue.  Tomorrow I will go look at houses for the first time in 24 years.  That same wonderful realtor who gave me to To Do list is calmly assuring me that there is A House Waiting for us to discover, yes, we will find it.  And meanwhile, we might live in an apartment.

I believe her when she says we will find it.  Because the same God who said, "Leave the place where you are," is the God who promises, "and go to a place I will show you."

The Lord God said to Abram:  Leave....

and go to a place I will show you.

- Genesis 12:1

That is exactly the promise he made to Abraham, the father of faith.  And it is a two-part process:  there is the leaving, and there is the going.  Right now we are living in the tension between those two.

Almost every day I write something on the inside of my wrist. It might be one word, or a phrase—some bit of truth that I need to remember that day.  I got the idea from my friend Nicole Hannah, who has a tattoo on the inside of her wrist, one word: loved.  When I first saw Nic's tat, I was just being convinced again that God did love me so much, and I wanted to get the same tat, but for me, the word changes too frequently.  God is always teaching me something new that I need to carry around with me and absorb, so for me, a Sharpie is the best tool.

These days, I am walking around with these words on my wrist: "I will show you."  Every morning I get up and write that promise again, and I watch for God to fulfill his promise.

I know I'm not the first or only person to leave somewhere and go, to pack up and move.  The past two weeks' travel has been part of God's timing in "showing me" something, as I have spent time with missionary friends in Bologna, London and Cape Town.  I have seen how simply they live, how lightly they hold things, how much they do with the home they have.  I watched many of them sell everything, turn their backs on their home and go, not knowing where they would live, not having a realtor.  I have seen how they have made the place God showed them a real and welcoming home.  I hold this as a template as I sort and pack and decide what to take forward with me.

I share all this with you to say:  I know there is tension in your life, where you live between the place of leaving and the place of arriving.  Where you cannot see what your new destination will look like.  Maybe you are also sorting and packing, deciding what attitudes or actions or relationships or things  to carry forward with you into the next part of life, what you need to put down, give away, leave behind.  I tell you this with all confidence:

He will show you.