Well, here we are again, on the cusp of yet another move. We've entered that part of the process where I can no longer pretend it's happening in the distant future. We're only a few months out now. We're chatting with a realtor, touring homes virtually, researching schools and neighborhoods, booking flights, making timelines and lists. This is happening, however difficult it is for me to come to terms with.
I know there are good things in store for us in our future home. For the first time ever, we'll be moving back to a place we've been before. We have friends we're thrilled to reconnect with, a church we're looking forward to rejoining, and places we love that we can't wait to revisit. But in the meantime, we have to endure this uncomfortable both/and--we're both excited to be going and sad to be leaving.
When people ask how we're feeling about the move, I often say something like, "Looking forward to what comes next, but not looking forward to leaving here." Then I quickly follow it up with, "I don't like this part--it feels like we have one foot out the door."
This, however, is not a sufficient analogy. Having one foot out the door implies you have both feet firmly on the ground. Moving is more like trying to maintain your balance while straddling a fence between here and there. You're often teetering between one or the other, balancing on tip toe, unable to put your full weight in either place, all while carrying a load that keeps shifting and changing.
I am both building friendships and preparing to say goodbye, both establishing our home and preparing to dismantle it and reassemble it elsewhere, both excited for what we'll gain and gutted for what we'll leave behind, present in body but often elsewhere in mind.
It's as uncomfortable and challenging as it sounds, but I realize this situation is not unique to us. We all have challenges in our lives and there are plenty of scenarios aside from moving where we feel like we're straddling two realities and need help steadying ourselves.
So how do we keep our balance? Where does our help come from?
This is a question I've been asking myself, and the opening verse of Psalm 121 comes to mind: "Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth."
I forgot how the rest of it goes, so I just looked it up. And here's God, in real time, answering a question I've just barely formed with his trademark tender care and uncanny specificity:
"He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore." (vv 3 & 8)
I mean, really--he's speaking not only to a particular anxiety I have in this situation but to the very metaphor I've used to describe it.
As I teeter between our present home and our future, unspecified-aside-from-the-city-we'll-be-moving-to home, he will steady me. As I shift my mental weight from one to the other and back again, he will watch over my coming and going. And he will preserve us in our final leaving of this home and our arrival at the one to come.