LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN (ALREADY!)

I haven’t written a blog in a while and frankly I’m practically at a loss for words, blogless, as it were.  This “waiting for the house to finally close so we can move” thing is getting old and I haven't wanted to fill a blog with whining.  But obviously, I've changed my mind.

Have you ever had to wait for serious test results for the 3-5 days the doctor said it would take, only to have it become more like 7-10 days?  When you finally get them, they’re negative, but for all those days you’ve lost sleep, wondering whether the delay is good news or bad.  Well, waiting for our house to close has been a bit like that, only obviously not so dire.

Unfortunately, as it turned out (we would have been better off without them), we were given the potential dates for closing as September 10 or the 14^th.  So, we went ahead and arranged for a pod to collect our belongings.  We contacted our nephews and offered them whatever furniture they might be able to use and arranged dates for picking it up.  We packed our boxes of pots and pans, dishes and glasses, and other essentials. Of the food items we weren't taking with us we filled a box of canned and boxed goods for a food pantry, and sorted through things we could give our youth group for a yard sale on the 19^th.

At the end of June, our daughter and her family moved out, taking our communal TV so we cancelled cable, but kept wifi.  We really haven’t missed the news and we can still watch old PBS mysteries at night after dinner via youtube.

By the time July 28^th rolled around the only furniture we had was our bed, three TV trays, two beach chairs, and an outdoor table with 4 chairs.  We enjoyed having breakfast and dinner outside every day.  But then this week the table and chairs had to be packed into the pod, which was picked up yesterday.  Our sister in law picked up the two beach chairs because we knew we'd have no room in the car to get them to her on our way to Florida.

So we are now sitting on VERY uncomfortable folding chairs, like the ones you get with a card table and having dinner off the TV trays.  Not bad for a quick game of rummy but a bit hard on the posterior when it's the only chair you have to sit on all day, all the time.

It’s truly amazing how many things can hold up a house closing that you thought were resolved weeks ago.  As of today, Saturday, September 12, 2015, we still don’t know the date of our closing!  We still have to make reservations for the auto train and take care of some other minor things before we go.  And we getting really tired of living in an empty house.

So do you know what I’m learning through these minor deprivations and waiting?  

I’m learning that we really can get by without a lot of things we think we need but really don’t.   

• We haven’t gone into TV withdrawal.   
• We don’t need a spaghetti fork.  Regular forks work just as well but maybe not as efficiently.   
• We really don’t need more than 2 chairs at a time.   
• Nothing beats the coziness of putting your beach chairs side by side and watching youtube videos from your computer on a TV tray.  Romance is where you find it!

I've also been reminded that there are some great books out there to occupy us even better than TV!  Every week I've read at least 3, both fiction and non-fiction and it is awesome!

I’m learning that without TV and the other STUFF in my life, I can be much more consistent in my Bible reading and study, and my prayers are more focused and powerful.  Two things are working together – I’m not as distracted, and consequently, the Lord is making His voice heard.  He’s waking me up in the middle of the night more often with some person or situation He has placed on my heart and I’m spending time talking with Him about them.  Only heaven will reveal His response to those late night/early morning prayers!

Though we have no date as yet, we hope to close on the house this week, so I’m thinking that tomorrow will be our final day with our much loved church family at Montvale Evangelic Free Church.  It will be very hard.  We have been members of this church for 15 years and have seen the Lord do some wonderful things in the body there and we love our pastors and the little flock that worships there.  We’re sorry we won’t be there to see what He has planned for them for the future, but though we’re not, we know He’ll do great things!

So this week we expect to say our final goodbyes – to church family, to our neighbors, to our home of 31 years, and to New Jersey where we’ve lived for just about all of our 68 years, to begin a new adventure with the Lord, who goes before us as well as with us!  Let the adventure begin (ALREADY!).