Busyness

First of all, thank you all for your prayers.  Four days after my last post Neal and I went to look at a home we stumbled upon on Craigslist [in Newport News].  Two days after that we were meeting with the landlord and signing a lease to rent her home!  After several months of searching (we'd been looking online for a couple months before actually moving) we're thrilled to have found a home that meets all of the criteria on our checklist....even things we were willing to compromise on!  That can be nothing other than God orchestrating things.  Now that rental-house-hunting is over, there has been a huge weight lifted off our shoulders.  I'm sure Neal can tell a definite difference in my stress level.

Also, now having moved home, and gotten settled in fairly well, it is crazy to me how much busier we are here in Virginia than we ever were in Washington.  I attribute a lot of that to having a lot more things to split our time between here.  In Washington we only had each other, our jobs, our small group, and the people we chose to hang out with.  Being back in Virginia, simply adding family back into that equation, means that we've added at least seven other households we're regularly involved with, which equates to eleven other people.  Yeah.  That's a lot.  Add on top of that weddings, holidays, and other life events, and we're definitely staying busy. 

And don't get me wrong, being busy isn't always a bad thing.  But I'm very conscious of busyness.  I don't like being busy and having nothing to show for it.  I can bear being busy when it means building relationship and sharing and enjoying life with others, but I cannot stand being busy just for the sake of filling a schedule.  It's pointless to me. This busy season is also forcing Neal and I to be much more deliberate about giving each other undivided attention.  We're so used to giving each other all of our attention pretty much all the time, and that simply doesn't happen anymore.  Though, maybe the Lord has it this way to prepare us for future seasons.  Who knows!

Despite all of the many many changes and busyness in our lives right now, we are still super excited to be back in Virginia and to have the opportunity to share in life with all of our friends and family!