God bless my poor neighbor Linda. She had picked the wrong time to do yard work.
It was earlier this year, about four in the afternoon on May 14th. I had just locked up our old house for the final time, taking with me the last couple of boxes of odds and ends accumulated during our thirty-two years of living there. Rick and I had already moved into our new house.
I walked just outside the garage and pressed the four-digit code into the keypad to lower the door. The creaking sound of the garage door panels sliding over the rails and slowly inching down toward the foundation only served to rub my heart in it … “it” being the fact that this house—our home for thirty-two years—was no longer ours.
The door hit the concrete with a thud. So much noisy rattling for ten seconds and in the very next instant, silence.
It was like the sting that comes after a after a slap.
I tried to hold back the tears, which was totally in keeping with my habit of wearing the face that says, “I’m fine.” But the garage door closing and the sudden quiet released the catch on my emotions. My tears broke free. My breaths shortened, and I started sucking air in shorter bursts, muscles contracting from deep within my diaphragm.
My car was parked along the curb and I aimed myself in its direction. As I walked, I forced myself to keep looking straight ahead and not turn around for another look. The last thing I needed was to give my mind another opportunity to remember. Thirty-two years gives you lots to remember. I just kept moving forward down the driveway.
That’s when I spotted Linda across the street in her front yard.
She was wearing gardening gloves, and a baseball cap to help protect her from an unusually hot mid-May day. She saw me, too, and we waved to one another.
It crossed my mind to keep walking to my car, accompanied by my tears and heaving breaths. I could have slipped into the driver’s seat and slinked away. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t just allow myself to wave and make that my goodbye to such a good woman. So, I crossed the street, went up to Linda, and gave her the biggest, longest, and teariest—maybe even the only—hug I had given her in the thirty-plus years we had been neighbors. I couldn’t even talk, I was crying so much.
We had watched as each other’s kids grow up. As some families moved elsewhere, Linda and her husband and family, and Rick, me, and our family—along with other original homeowners on our street—remained. We were the Deer Path Woods old timers. Except now, we were leaving as well, to become the “new neighbors” somewhere else. And a new, young family would be moving in the next day and raising their family there just like we did.
And I was okay with that. Really, I was. Still, I couldn’t help but feel sad and wistful about bringing those chapters of our lives to a close.
Three months have passed …
… and although the move brought some changes to our lives—some big (a new church, a new bank, some new doctors) and some small (a new dry cleaner and ice cream stand)—I can honestly say that I’ve been very much at peace with it. So much so, in fact, that I’ve asked myself, “How is that? How could I live in one place for thirty-two years, move, and almost immediately feel comfortable in my new surroundings?”
I soon understood—no, felt—the reason why.
The reason goes beyond the fact that Rick and I feel very comfortable in our new home. There’s more to it than, once again, being blessed with wonderful neighbors. And, even though I’m thrilled for our dogs that there are many furry friends for them here in our new community, that doesn’t explain my contentment either.
As with most things that speak to our inner selves, the explanation goes deeper than anything I can lay my eyes or hands on. And yet, I feel it as strongly as having arms wrapped around me in a tight, loving embrace. Once the following thought came to me, I felt the sweet peace of surrendering to it:
We had moved, but God was where He’s always been, which is … right by my side.
The thought of these words, even now as I type and repeat them to myself, are such a comfort.
In no way do I want to dismiss the sadness that moving away from family, friends, and familiar surroundings can bring. Those feelings are powerful and only ease with time. In God, though, we have someone who will navigate it all with us; we need only to keep our hearts open to Him.
This same way of thinking can be applied to so many aspects of our lives where there is change:
- Has a family member or friend recently been admitted to the hospital … or passed away … thereby changing who is present in your life?
- Has a relationship in your life become strained or recently ended?
- Have you changed jobs?
- Are you sending a child off to college for the first time, thereby changing life as you’ve known it for the past eighteen years? (Been there, done that!)
Or something as seemingly innocuous as:
- Has your normal route to work been closed due to construction, thereby changing and lengthening your commute?
Through any change—large or small—remember: God never calls U-Haul. God does not move or change. He is, rather, the steadiest, most loving presence in our lives. God is wherever you are.
(Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash)