Goodbye from Arlington...

This will be my last post from Arlington, VA. They're coming today to take away my cable modem, so that's why I can't hang on a little longer. Just about everything is packed. We mainly just need to do some cleaning and making calls today. We pick up the UHaul tomorrow, and the movers will be loading it tomorrow afternoon. We head to NC on Sunday after church. Please pray for us as we travel. I haven't done the 6 hour drive to my parents with Seth before, so I'm a little nervous about how it's going to go, especially since David and Kitty will be behind us in the UHaul.

When we left Alabama, I was ready to go. I was pretty sure we were right to leave, even though I wasn't sure what was waiting for us up here. This time, I'm not ready to go. I haven't emotionally left Arlington yet. And I don't really want to leave. If David could get his dream job here, and we could afford a place big enough for a little family, I wouldn't go. But really, it's just that I don't want to say goodbye to the best year of my life. We visited Charlottesville, and prior to this year, I would've said that that time was the best year of my life. But, driving around town, looking at our first apartment, hanging out with my old co-workers, I realized, "That happy time completely pales in comparison to this." And I guess I'm afraid. I'm afraid that we will move, and things will get hard again. I'm afraid that I'll be lonely in the suburbs. I'm afraid that God will call us to another tough church and another tough time in life if we leave here. I feel like, as long as I stay here, I can hang on to happiness. What will happen if we leave? Will life still be sweet and peaceful somewhere else?

I don't know. But I have this verse to comfort me: "And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, "In the future when your descendants ask their fathers, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them, 'Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.' For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The LORD your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God."

Years from now, Seth and I will look at the pictures we took this year in Arlington, and I will tell him of God's faithfulness to our little family. I will show him "stones" of remembrance of how God provided for us. We have truly crossed on dry ground. There are many piles of rocks that we have laid down all over the country, from NC, to Virginia, to Maryland, to Alabama, to Virginia, and they all tell the same story. The Lord is powerful, and He has been good to us. We will praise Him, and we will raise another pile in Raleigh, NC.