Well we made it to Durango, Colorado ~ all four of us together again!
I wish I could take you along the journey day-by-day from this past month because in it you would see evidence of God’s grace, providence, and sovereign care time and again.

BUT I know that neither you nor myself have the time to recount all the ways He has shown Himself faithful and strong on this journey…

However.
For a few minutes I will take you through snapshots of our lives as we made the move from St. Joe to Durango, and briefly share with you some of God’s “whispers” along the way…

God united our hearts quickly and deeply with some families in St. Joe, so saying goodbye to those precious friends and neighbors was by far the hardest part of this process. 

There has continued to be tears as we remember and miss them, but God promises to be faithful to bring comfort to those who mourn (Matthew 5:4) and I’m so thankful to have personally experienced that comfort recently.

Everyone was skeptical about whether or not we’d be able to fit everything into this 26′ Uhaul, 

but alas! have no fear, Ty (the packing master) is here!
 

At 10:30pm I stepped inside our sweet little 1890’s home on Forres Ave one last time and thanked God for the amazing blessing and provision it had been, but didn’t linger knowing that memories would flood my mind and tears would soon overwhelm me.

Then we drove away.

Nya was riding shotgun with me and I held her hand as she cried and looked out the window. I rarely listen to the radio, but I decided to turn it on in the hopes that it would distract us in a positive way. Well, it certainly did.
The first lyrics I heard after turning it on were:

The same God who was with you then is with you now
The same God who led you in will lead you out
So take all the fear and doubt
Go on and lay them down
The same God, the same God is with you now

Can’t you see
Everything happens for a reason
There’s a time, there’s a place
For every season
He knows what’s best for you
So don’t be afraid

I like to call that a “whisper from God”.

The next three days were filled with all the fun that goes along with roadtrips ~ hotels with swimming pools, eating out, seeing new territory, talking, and listening to stories and silly music in the car…

But, like I said, there were also sorrowful moments as the girls looked through photos of friends and notes they’d written…

And then it came… finally…
MOUNTAINS!!!

Elli must have taken 50 pictures or more on her little camera as we wove in and out of mountains!
 
Ahhh…
our new home.

That first evening we tried unloading as much as we could ourselves and soon realized it would be a VERY long and difficult process to unpack that Uhaul by ourselves.
 

So we prayed that God would provide help…

and the following day after church 5 or 6 guys came over and the whole trailer was unloaded in 2 hours!
Thank you Lord.

Our empty home was soon filled to the max with boxes and furniture…
ah, but that didn’t stop Ty from enjoying a nice meal at the table 🙂

 Monday Ty went back to work and that left us girls to do, what else?…
PAINT!

With the girls’ room complete it was time to move into the living room and start setting it up.

I’ll close with these final few pictures …  more “whispers” you might say…

This was what I opened up to when we got home from our massive 2-month road trip back in April & May. At that point we had a pretty good hunch we would be leaving St. Joe and moving to Durango, which was a bit difficult for all of us in some ways. This little reminder was quite timely…
“Seek silver linings… Home is wherever we’re together.”

Then there was this little reminder in July when I was cleaning out a storage bench and found these random little letters at the bottom… only these letters, no others in the entire bench…

And finally, I pulled my calendar out of the moving box a few days ago and opened to August…

 

“Sometimes not knowing where you are going to land is the best part of the adventure.”

Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.”
Deuteronomy 31:8