It's Been Two Years

Today, it is two years exactly since we moved all our belongings to Wisconsin.  In some ways, it feels like it couldn't possibly have been that long, and yet in others, it seems like the Warrenville days are such a distant memory, it's hard to remember when we didn't live here.  That's especially true for the kids, since a bigger percentage of their lives have been lived here.

And I am so glad to report that we are happy here!  God eased our transition so beautifully.  Our three youngest have had built-in friends from the start, through our church.  Bantam15 made friends through the homeschool group, directly and indirectly, in the first year that we were here, and he's added to that collection this year since he started attending the Christian school.  Blondechick had the rockiest transition, perhaps, with her initial friendships in our neighborhood, at summer PE class and at the public charter school all "of the wrong sort."  Things turned around for her when she went to Honey Rock Camp last year and came home saying, "I see why you want to transfer me to the Christian school."  Praise the Lord!  Since then, her friendships have all met with wholehearted parental approval (even that with the young man pictured in the previous post), and her heart is back with the Lord as well.  And she's retained the one Christian friend she made at the charter school, a lovely girl whose family doesn't attend church, but whose aunt used to take her.  Now that she's got her driver's license, she comes faithfully to our church and usually brings her younger sister, and often another friend as well.  (She says, "I'm a walking billboard for anything I love, and I love Light of Christ!")

Bantam19 is the only one who has ever said that he wished we hadn't moved.  At our old church, there were a couple other boys his age who accepted and included him in their activities sometimes; here, there is no one his age at church.  At school, he has a friendship or two, but they don't extend beyond the school day.  He still has his girlfriend, though.  It's been a year now that they've maintained their long-distance friendship, since she's being homeschooled, "on the road again," with her mother who is a trucker.  Occasionally, when she's home for the weekend, we pick her up and bring her to church with us.  So far, it's been a low-maintenance relationship for us, at least--and it's not hurting B19's social skills to talk on the phone with her a couple times a week.  (We are surprised, sometimes, at his ability to hold up his end of a conversation that is not about Stargate!)

Papa Rooster and I, too, have made wonderful new friends here at our church.  It seems that it has been easy to enjoy and appreciate each one that God has drawn together there.  We are so blessed by our partnerships in ministry, as well as by friendships filled with laughter and good conversation.  On the other hand, I sometimes miss my old friends and groups terribly.  I really loved my old life.  I do miss it sometimes, and the transition to my new one has required so much energy!  But I feel such a sense of God's blessing, and his presence with us here.  I feel the peace that comes from obedience.  I am so grateful to God for making the move a good one for our kids, because if they were unhappy, I think I would have trouble dealing with it.

It does seem like the last two years have been stress-filled.  Besides adjusting to a new life, building the church, and getting our kids settled in school (and then resettling Blondechick17 and Bantam15), Papa Rooster's job has only become more stressful.  Starting the Kenosha chapter of our theater group took a lot of my time and energy--though a sense of obedience and blessing came with it--and now that that job is ending, I have the new task of getting B19 and Blondechick launched toward college.

So they've been two incredibly tiring years!  And yet, I think we'll look back on them as years in which God was really working, in our church and in our family.  I've been too often too busy to pray, and yet the sense of God's presence with me has grown in new ways in these two years.  Probably my most frequent cry has been "Lord, have mercy on us."  And I think He has poured it out.

Praise be to the LORD,
       for he has heard my cry for mercy.

 The LORD is my strength and my shield;
       my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
       My heart leaps for joy
       and I will give thanks to him in song. 

(Psalm 28:6-7)