I wasn't expecting it - I think I was more prepared to walk the four of you through the change, but you made up your beds that first day and you snuggled in for the night and I was the one who sat up in the dark with eyes opened wide wondering about this path that God has led us on.
It wasn't fear that kept me up, but this feeling of being caught. Caught in the middle of two very different communities who both think that your daddy and I are slightly crazy for packing up this family of six and moving us "down here".
There's a woman, she's younger then me...I met her that first day we unloaded those boxes. I was in the backyard talking chickens with Valentina when she stopped at the fence and gave me her name.
She's had a few teeth knocked out by the looks of it.
She walked by the next day too and I waved, because that's what I do, and she approached me slowly and then asked,
Ummm...are you from around here?
I never know how to answer, because when you've moved as many times as we have, I'm not really from around anywhere, but your daddy stepped in because he saw where this was going and he told her why we were here and moving on to this street.
You were all running in the front yard with the dog so I'm pretty sure you didn't hear her response, but she looked at me like I was crazy.
Why would your move down here? You have kids! There are gang shootings and drugs all around you! You have kids!
And then she said even quieter,
I would give anything to move away from this place...
Last night, an article started circulating around Facebook. I didn't read it, but by the gist of the comments I was reading *about* it, the city that we live in is apparently one of the top ten most terrifying cities to live in the United States.
And we moved right down into the thick of it.
We moved *you* right down into the thick of it.
The week before we moved in while Olivia and your daddy were outside in the playground, 7 shots were fired into the street. Right in front of this very house we now live in.
One bullet flies wrong and my world...
I don't have the words.
And yet...
I think of Jesus. How He left the beauty and the purity and the perfection of Heaven. How He gave up all that He had to come down here - to the brokenness and the the depravity of us. He did it because He loved us. Us? The very people who would insult Him and crucify Him - question His sanity and mock and ridicule Him at the end...He left the glory He had to be covered in our dust.
Our house that we left was simple, nothing grand or opulent. Our street was quiet, mostly seniors and maybe 4 other children. But what started out last summer as a quiet pull turned into a determination that could only come from the very Spirit of God. He moved us all out of what is considered safe into a situation that to some appears foolish.
But I want to write this down so that you will see. So that I will see. So that we will know.
Even here, where the world looks and raises eyebrows at our street number, where our sanity is questioned and our motives are scrutinized, even here we are safe.
We are safe, sweet ones, because the Eternal God Who became a man - Who died and rose again, He is our refuge.
Not this house, though at 108 years old, it is solid.
Not the lights I leave on at night, though they give a pretty glow.
Not a dog who growls and barks, because really, he's just a puppy anyways.
Don't call me brave, because I'm not. I'm just desperate for Jesus, desperate to be in His Will. Desperate for you to see that living for Him is worth it.
You are my treasures, my sweet gifts, and you have been thrown into an adventure that you didn't choose, but the joy, the healing you are finding here in this place is a beautiful gift I didn't expect.
This is all a gift - one I am so grateful to have received.
I love you. So very much.
~Your Mama
