First of all I need to give myself some props because here I am blogging again. HA! You guys -writing out my thoughts, feelings or creating blogging content is something I have never done consistently. It’s something that I have always admired that others were really good at but never thought it could be me. Much like reading (which I have really started to enjoy since homeschooling my oldest) I am determined to make blogging a consistent part of my life. So here we go!

Almost two months ago our family made the decision to follow the Lord’s very clear direction and move our family to Georgia. I don’t need to necessarily to get into the specifics of how we knew this was a clear direction from the Lord so just take my word for it -it TRULY was very clear to us that we needed to move.

For years we had prayed for the Lord to make a way for us to be able to stop apartment living (this year made eight years of living in an apartment). During those eight years, our two apartments served us well for the season of life we were in. However, after adding two children to our family and us deciding to homeschool, we started longing for a environment with a little more space and less worry over our neighbors being bothered by small children who are often quite noisy 🙂 To be honest, I will miss the cute little apartments on Alices Road that we brought both of our babies home to. Especially our most recent place. It served as a place of escape, healing, rebuilding, hopefulness, joyfulness and comfort. Not to mention, we made the BEST memories there. Our sacred space on Alices Road will always hold a special place in my heart. The move to Georgia has allowed us to live in a house and that has been the biggest answer to prayer. We love our cute white house with black shutters nestled right outside the city of Atlanta (a much quieter city). We are really excited to create new memories here.

Over the next few weeks we were able to explore fun places in Atlanta, decorate parts of our new house, have quality time with two sets of grandparents, celebrate a birthday & start our first grade year with our oldest son! I am REALLY thankful for how busy our life was immediately after moving -I really think this helped me adjust from leaving Iowa.

Now that we talked about the beautiful that came and will continue to come from moving to Georgia, I’d love to talk about the bittersweet parts -because I believe that moments in life can be both amazing & difficult and can exist at the same time. You would think that moving away from Iowa wouldn’t be a big deal. Brandon and I have hardly ever lived near family and have NEVER lived near family while having kids. We have lived in South Carolina, North Carolina (for an extremely small amount of time), Iowa (two separate times) and now Georgia. We aren’t new to the concept of packing our life up and heading to a new location.

Leaving this time was different for me. To be honest, I don’t really think anyone other than those the closest to me will understand why leaving this time was bittersweet. What I am about to say will be frustrating (believe me, I strongly dislike when people do this, but the right & wise thing to do is to be vague) so without me getting into specifics, moving back to Iowa after our small stint in North Carolina changed every aspect of our life. We arrived back in Iowa broken in almost every spiritual and mental way possible. We came back and immediately our church & very special individuals at our work began the process of helping us heal. The deep connection & friendships you develop when those people are the ones picking up the shattered pieces you are in is almost indescribable. They are friendships that last a lifetime. After trauma you would think you would be more closed off -and while that was how we were for quite a while after, we began to really open up in so many ways. We became more involved with our church (which we were never great at the first time we lived in Iowa), we began spending more one-on-one time with friends, we grew in our relationship with Jesus in a BIG way, we became more consistent in gathering with our church family weekly (another area we struggled with in the past), and I began to freely open up to those who were close to me about almost every area of my life. It’s almost like this new confidence grew in me through healing and I became very outspoken about areas I was struggling in but also growing in. Life became sweet again. We had our second baby, went on more adventures, spent more time as a family during B’s off days, had less work stress, I started a photography business & we made some incredible memories. God’s redemption is the sweetest part of this story. All of that to say, this is without a shadow of doubt why leaving was bittersweet for me. Iowa was our physical safe place (Jesus is truly our only safe place) but you understand what I mean. The moment we found out we were leaving I was ELATED but also had this weird sense of grief. It was truly the strangest place mentally to be in. One second I was smiling from ear to ear, dancing around my apartment for being given this exciting opportunity and then within a matter of minutes I was crying because I knew we were leaving people who I am the closest to. I have had to really turn to the Lord during these crazy mood swings. That is the best way I can describe it…CRAZY ha!

I am so happy we are here. Yes, I miss my friends…more than I can describe…but I am SO happy we moved. Moving has been specifically good for B. I have seen a huge change in him since moving. I can’t really describe it but it’s almost as if further healing as taken place since moving. All praise to Jesus.

I wanted to share a few things that have helped me during my quiet moments (I find the sadness creeping in the most when I have downtime during the day). Keeping myself busy has helped me stay grounded and to stay focused on the beautiful and less on the “bittersweet”.

Another huge answer to prayer was that we found a new church home in our town! We are ready to create new friendships, grow in the Lord with other believers & see what exciting things come from us joining this new body. They have already been so kind to us and I am so grateful for it.

Wow! That was a pretty long update -but in my defense it has been a LONG time since I blogged a life update 🙂

We are beyond happy to be here. God is so good & I am so excited to see where He leads our family moving forward. What a beautiful & bittersweet season we are in -I wouldn’t have it any other way.