Seven Years Ago, We Let Go

Sunday marked seven years since we loaded our family up and drove to Florida for a visit.

We had just sold our home and put almost everything we owned into storage. To be honest, I don't remember this day. I don't remember this picture being taken. But I remember the days that led up to it.

We spent weeks holding yard sales, purging, downsizing and looking at everything we owned, trying to decide what would stay and what would go. We didn't know where we were going next. We just knew God had told us to untether from where we were.

First, we transitioned our precious church to new leadership. It was painful. These were our people. Our church family. We had loved them, served alongside them and done life with them. Parting with them was hard.

Once we transitioned our church, God told us to list our home for sale. And that's when the yard sales and purging really began.

Parting with our church family. Parting with our stuff. Parting with our home. Parting with our friends.

There was a lot of letting go all at once.

Moving week came, and the whole thing got a little crazy. Adam had arranged for some men he had connected with through Facebook Marketplace to help us move. They were strangers, but they were available, and the price was right.

Then, the night before moving day, Adam had to abruptly leave for Kentucky because his dad had a medical emergency. So the next morning, I was home with my young children and two strangers from Facebook Marketplace.

Adam had asked our neighbor to keep an eye on us with the strange men coming to help us the next day. Ironically, I was woken in the middle of the night by ambulance lights. It was our neighbor. He was having a medical emergency of his own.

Thankfully, he was okay, but he was in no condition to oversee the strangers the next morning.

So there I was—two strangers, a U-Haul, my kids and me trying to keep an eye on everybody while giving directions.

And then there was the U-Haul.

We had ordered the largest size. They reserved the smallest.

Which meant the men were in and out of our home multiple times, making trip after trip to the storage unit and extending the already long and stressful day. We crammed what was left after the purge into storage and packed our two-week suitcases for our “adventure.”

I remember watching those men drive the truck away each time and thinking, Well...I hope they're taking it to our storage unit.

Thankfully, they did a great job.

Adam returned, his dad was out of the woods and recovering, and our house was sold. We spent the night at our neighbor's because we were packed up and moved out, but we still had one more thing to do before we left town.

Adam had his ordination interview.

It was important that he complete the exam before we left Georgia because we didn't know where we were headed yet. We both had to go. It was the final step before approval.

Embarassingly, I can’t remember where my kids were for this. I'll have to ask them.

We were exhausted from moving, emotionally drained from his dad's emergency and still hadn't really wrapped our minds around the transition that was happening.

And then we went for the interview.

It was awful.

My husband is wonderful. He does well under pressure and he's a great speaker, but that day, he was not okay. We made it through the interview by God's grace. Thankfully, the interviewer knew us, and Adam was able to be honest with them about our week and how exhausted we were.

He passed.

And then we left.

We left the home we had prayed for. The one with the wraparound porch. The one with the swing where there had been giggles, stories and peaceful moments. I can still hear the sound of that swing.

We left the swimming pool and evening cookouts. We left the woods and the trail to the lake. We left our neighbors, our church family and our homeschool community.

We left the comfort of our normal routine, our doctors, our hairdresser, our running routes and all the familiar places.

We left without knowing where we were going.

When this photo was taken, all we knew was that we were going to Florida to visit friends for two weeks.

Two weeks.

That's it.

For many people, what we were doing didn't make much sense. And if I'm honest, there have been times over these last seven years when it hasn't made much sense to me either.

But we trusted Him.

And we're still trusting Him.

Proverbs 3:5–6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

I think about that verse differently now.

Trusting God doesn't mean you understand what He's doing. Sometimes you don't understand at all. Sometimes you just know the next step, and that's enough for today.

And sometimes the thing God asks you to release is something you genuinely love.

That doesn't mean you don't grieve it.

I still miss that house. I miss people. There are friendships I wish I had worked harder to maintain. There are people I love dearly that I wish I had stayed in better contact with.

I wish I had known then how to lead my children through the unknown a little better.

There are things I would do differently.

That's one of the strange things about looking back seven years later. You can see things you couldn't see then. You can see what you might have handled differently, what you wish you had known and what you wish you could go back and do again.

But I also know we were doing the best we knew how to do at the time.

We didn't do everything perfectly.

And God was still faithful.

I remember the very last things I took out of our house. You know how it is when you think you've emptied everything and then find random little things left behind in a cabinet or drawer? I gathered those final little things together in a small skillet and snapped a picture.

It's such a random picture, but I don't want to forget it.

That little skillet held the remnants of a home we had just left behind.

I don't want that home back.

But I miss it.

And I love where we are.

I love what God has done, and I love what He's still doing.

Funny how we can hold both.

We can grieve what was and be grateful for what is. We can miss people and still move forward. We can love a season that ended without needing to go back to it.

Letting go doesn't always mean you stop loving what you're leaving.

Sometimes you carry the memories with you.

Sometimes you carry the people with you, even when you aren't able to stay as close as you wish you had.

Seven years has seeped through my fingers like sand, and yet somehow those seven years have held so much.

A two-week visit turned into three months.

Three months turned into seven years.

And God is still moving. AND GOD IS STILL MOVING.

There is so much more to the story. We have watched God move in ways we couldn't have understood from that driveway seven years ago. We saw circumstances change, doors open and things fall into place that we never could have planned ourselves.

That two-week visit became something else entirely.

Florida became home.

And here we are.

Seven years later.

I look at this picture and remember a family that had no idea what was coming. We didn't know where we were going to live. We didn't know what our lives would look like. We didn’t know the miracles He was about to do to keep us in Florida.

We just knew we were supposed to go.

And sometimes, years later, you look back and realize that while you couldn't see the whole story, God could.

As I stand at the edge of a new season, I don't know what the next seven years will hold. Yet, some of the same is still true….I’m still watching God move in ways I have yet to understand. I’m seeing circumstances change, doors open and things fall into place that I never could have planned myself. I don’t yet know the miracles that are about to happen.

But I know Who holds them.

And that's enough.