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steve and i are in the arctic circle...or at least that's what michigan seems like this time of year. although i am not a big fan of winter, there is a freshness that's inescapable. each time i step outside it seems to hit me in the face, taking my breath away and leaving me stopped in my tracks to inhale. 

i am expectant & anxious  for what i know lies ahead in the coming months and yet still not knowing what to expect. i feel curious & calm. unafraid & eager.  every single day of this past year has been a reminder that God is continuing to perfect the things that concern me. that He is directing my steps as i make plans and that He knows my thoughts {well enough to plant me in winter so that i learn to slow down. keep my chin up. focus on the now}. 

i read something today that so resonated with my feelings about relocation and seems to be what i have been trying to explain upon returning back to the states from afghanistan in october...it also seems so fitting as steve & i get ready to relocate once again...

jonathan wilson-hartgrove puts it like this (when explaining his return to the states from iraq);

"we are not blind, we can see from above, almost as if from the cockpit of an f-16. sure people have different perspectives, but an elephant is an elephant just like a war is a war. we can't even imagine anything different...iraq taught me that where we locate ourselves doesn't only change our perspective, it can also change the thing we see and our capacity to re-imagine it. we heard and saw a different story (than CNN) in iraq because we walked the streets unarmed, willing to trust the men and women who were suffering political turmoil. the "embedded media" weren't lying when they showed a different iraq. the TV just showed what the world looks like from behind a gun...sometimes you have to relocate in order to really see the world and re-imagine your role within it..."

he goes on to talk about how relocation often has little to do with physical relocation (because i guess if we all relocated to the abandoned places they wouldn't be abandoned anymore...) and starts in the way that we do life in the places where we are already flourishing. 

everything within me is begging to re-imagine. i feel like a new day is here (and honestly for me it has little or nothing to do with obama) and bringing change with it.

into the great unknown again (with pit stops in new jersey and hawaii)...

i will leave you with a quote from steve who just came in the room and said 

"i like our life, sometimes it's messy but i like it."

i like it too, mr. schallert. i like it a whole lot.