Literally, I am moving all the time it seems. I have been packing and unpacking suitcases, backpacks, duffles and diaper bags, and our magical minivan more times than I care to count. We are just days from our first transatlantic flight with four children under five and I really. can't. wait! Car travel is for the birds, I want to fly!
Why are we flying across the ocean? Well, It's because we are heading to France to start language school and a life of ministry, following a call to European missions. We have been on this journey since I started this blog a few years ago and now, it is finally happening. IN TWO DAYS! I have been moving so much that I have not had time to sit at my computer and get my thoughts out about anything, much less the ins and outs of motherhood. But here I sit on the floor outside the room my kids are trying to sleep in at my in-laws house, attempting to keep them in their places so they calm down enough to sleep, and I have stillness for a few minutes.
I am always moving. The ebb and flow of my life is from one child to the next, one meal to the next, from the first diaper change to the last drink of water at night, I am up and down, around and about seeing to the needs of my four—COUNT 'EM FOUR!—small children. Not to mention seeing to it that I look up from the little people long enough to make eye contact at least once a day with the love of my life and make sure he eats something...and has clean clothes...AND knows of my undying affection ;) .
I am always moving. Packing up and unpacking boxes, suitcases and piles of stuff. It's what we do right now, apparently. We live in chaos, we live in transition. It's like inhabiting the unresolved, tense part of a jazz song or a great symphony, but never getting to the sweet resolution and the harmony of a major closure. In the space of four years, we have moved 12 times. TWELVE! My husband literally applied for a homeless driver's license last week—Yes, it is a thing! We are streamlining and letting things go which is a positive, but we are losing things in the process. Sigh.
God is always moving. He doesn't sit still and let things happen. He is always doing a new thing. His mercies are NEW every morning. But how do we, in the midst of all this movement survive the chaos? Find time to breathe when all there is from here until whenever is fluctuation and perpetual motion?
In Him, we live, we move and we have our being. The important thing in all this motion, is that I find my stillness in Him. That He is my constant and yet He is my inspiration to go forward. He is the wind in my sails and my anchor to hold me firm. An object in motion will stay in motion, and a child of God will be still and know who He is, even when all shifts and changes around them.