This is it.

The little blue house that we have made a home.

This is it.

Our last Christmas just the two of us.

Our last Christmas before baby girl joins us.

Our second nest.

It's hard, leaving everything and everyone you know.

It's hard, not being there to hold your sister-friend when she loses her first child.

Or to hold the breathing first child of another.

Most of the time I'm afraid to admit how hard it is.

I guess I'm just scared of people despising my weakness.

There is a serious lack of comfort in leaving what you know.

The shape of you - the hollows worn in your heart by consant familiarity with people and places - it doesn't fit anymore.

It doesn't fit anywhere.

So the carving begins again.

The erosion begins, ever so slowly, to hollow out new places.

New places in your heart to hold new people.

The old hollows still bring a pang when you run your fingers over them and remember.

But you only do that when you're not busy working out the new hollows.

And, ever so slowly, (almost imperceptibly) you're an altogether different shape than you have ever been before.

And when you go home you don't fit there anymore either.

That is life.

It's hard.

Hard because you never really fit anywhere and comfort is just an illusion until you truly arrive Home.

It's hard.

But is it worth it?

Yes.

It is worth it to be carved into that which you cannot imagine.

It is worth the learning to trust the Carver who is carving you to fit perfectly into an Eternal Home.

"Thou hast shown me that because thou art mine

I can live by Thy life,

be strong in Thy strength,

be guided by Thy wisdom;

and so I can pitch my thoughts and heart in Thee."

 

"With Thee I can live without other things,

for Thou art God all-sufficient,

and the glory, peace, rest, joy of the world

is a creaturely, perishing thing in comparison with Thee.

Help me to know that he who hopes for nothing but Thee,

and for all things only for Thee, hopes truly,

and that I must place all my happiness in holiness,

if I hope to be filled with all grace."
 

                                        - The Valley of Vision