Plans Change

Here are some things I have always known about myself

• I like to write.  It's like therapy for me. My moment to clear my head, my heart, & my space. It's where I share uninterrupted, expect no one to really be listening & yet have no problem if people discover it because I am in control of what I put out there. I can't be a victim to what I write. 
• I love to experience the world. Put me on a plane, on a train, in a car, near or far, I want to see what's out there. I love feeling this big in a world that is so much bigger. I find my place in that, I find perspective in it: it's not about me, it's not about circumstance, it's not about an individual, it's about a whole! 
• I've got some serious cracks & some awesome intention to keep gluing them back together. I don't stay broken, I am NOT defined by breaking, I am made by the attempts to try & to improve. 

So, given all of that, it hasn't surprised me that I have found my world uprooted from California and replanted in Oregon. Was it a lifelong dream? Nope. Was it on purpose? Not at first. Has it become a dream? Yah, in many ways it has. Has it developed a purpose? Yes. period. 

We had this plan. We would keep our jobs, keep our house, keep our son in preschool, keep the same friends and maintain the same life. Plans change. We lost our jobs, we were going to lose our house and we had this choice: stay put where doors were staying closed or be BOLD & dare to say, "We are moving north."

So, I think it was God's plan. Scratch that- I KNOW it was God's plan. Because when we said YES to something so terrifying, doors flew open. Do we have jobs yet? Oddly-no. But as it turns out, those are human perceptions of doors. God blew doors down for a place to live, a school for our sons to be a part of, a community for us to belong in, a church for us to find a home in, and friends to fill our hearts with. Did it take away the longing for the ocean we use to drive by, my dream fence my husband built or the ache for our friends, nuh-uh--we just happened to unfold. We found ourselves expanding. We now had new inlets to love and more outlets to pour from.

So we had this California plan but it changed into an Oregon one that looks strange, unfamiliar, and scary to those we put some miles between but if I could say anything to those who feel misplaced, confused, angry, or unhappy the change it would be this: Distance doesn't divide unless it's allowed to. Love doesn't stop unless it's withheld. Bonds don't break unless they are severed. Proximity doesn't change my love for you and that bond can be in the past or be a past, present AND future.