i remember...the one month count-down.

  Today in fact marks a month before we move to Asia. 

it's a tad surreal, and I feel almost as though it's not happening. 

as if "i'm moving to asia" is even like a normal sentence to say. 

Yesterday I sat in my living room on the couch, reading and journaling. It was all very normal until all of a sudden it hit me that i'm counting my last days in this beloved janky apartment God has given us this past year. 

{interject katie's teary face.} 

the memories are gifts I will carry with me forever. 

momentos of monday night college bible studies with tea and coffee and laughter.

wednesday night life groups with hugs and tears and worship and depth. 

afternoons filled with playing and dancing and reading and cooking with our little neighbors whom we adore. 

mornings with tea and blankets cuddled on the couch with Abba. 

the most lovely and simple realization came warmly to rest upon my heart. 

that life is community that is lived in the cracks and crannies of our day. 

rarely do I remember anything else but the community, and hardly does anything impact me as deeply. 

i don't remember the days I wasted on facebook, and if I do i'm quite sad they stole precious minutes. 

i don't remember the naps I took or the outfits that took ages to put together. 

but i remember dancing to gangam style with two little boys who had definite swag.

i remember hosting a ghetto vbs on our front porch.

 

i remember when i almost burned the apartment down cooking a thanksgiving dinner for our neighbors.

i remember Kevin holding me in his arms on the couch when I cried

{which was, ummmm, a lot}

and i remember Abba's sweet whispering that i am loved and forgiven while sitting in my green chair. 

very little of my memory holds space for anything else but kingdom work. 

because what is LIFE if we're not ALIVE in Abba's will? 

if we're not living and loving and doing all that we can 

to bring heaven's delights to earth's crumbles?

So as I close this chapter of my life, I do not regret the giving. 

the giving of our home, our time, our life and our hearts. 

we didn't do it perfectly, 

Lord knows we failed 

and sometimes we just locked the door and hid when the kids rang the doorbell a million times. 

but in our experiment of giving so that community could thrive,

we won. 

God's gift to us came in the breaking down of our individualistic tendencies. 

painful at times when all we wanted to do was ignore everyone and watch Downton Abbey.

But the breaking happened 

so that His love seeds could scatter further and longer.

I learned that community is the soil in which those love seeds are planted.

We can't plant seeds if we're a hermit. just a newsflash. 

and even though I cry about leaving behind my little babies in the neighborhood,

I don't have to worry, because the seeds are sown,

and Abba's the one who will water and grow them anyway.

so my babies are in good hands. 

and that's what i remember.

the community.

the giving.

the love seeds.

and the God who cares enough about all of it to shower down grace.

wherever we may go. 

and that gives me great joy as we move. 

because we can't move anywhere out of Abba's realm.

thank God. 

love Katie