Ending A Chapter

As I begin to type this, I am realizing that I don't even know the words to write to begin to express whats going on in my heart right now.

I am praying as I hit each key on this keyboard that, somehow, these words come together to form a feeling you can understand and relate to.

I don't even understand it.

The truck comes tomorrow. We load all of our belongings into a trailer and ship it off to meet us in Virginia at the end of next week.

This is actually happening, we are really leaving.

It is a weird combination of emotions building up as we say our 'goodbyes' and our 'see you laters' and as we pack boxes full to the brim with so many pieces of our journey and our story of the last four years.

A story that has contained monumental highs and lows in our life.
A story that has brought some of the most amazing people we have ever met.

Colorado has been home, and now it is not. Processing that is a weird mixture of simple and complex.

As we leave here, we leave as completely different people than we were when we arrived.
We leave here sculpted by the people and the experiences.  By the heartache and the joys.

So, as our time here comes to an end, and as we pack these boxes and we begin to feel the tangible reality that this really is it - I am flooded by a profound sense of loss.

This chapter, this season, this moment, is over.

And that is followed by intense joy.

We are being brought from here to an absolute place of beauty and goodness and completely planned providence by our incredible God.

That level of excitement, of anticipation, is indescribable.

There is this huge part of me that wants to pack up the car tomorrow and leave a little over a week sooner than we are scheduled to, simply because I am joyously anxious over God's promise for this next step.

I can feel the goodness that He is preparing, I can feel His hand guiding every piece of this. I feel His peace and His reassurance and His comfort speaking to my soul and flooding my heart with confidence.

There is splendor ahead.

But, to get to that, we must leave what we know and love. We must leave what we are comfortable with and everything we had planned for.

We have to leave the familiar place.

The place that has built us, the people who have shaped us, the environment that has grown us.

This place.

This place where we came from Texas, believing that it could never compare.
This place where we experienced our first financial mistakes and what it looks like to journey back from that together.
This place where we brought home our first dog - totally unaware that she would become our world.
This place where we bought our first house together, and had it built from a dirt lot.
This place where we took in a relative stranger hoping to be able to make a difference in a tough point in his life, and in turn found him making a profound difference in ours.
This place where we journeyed through infertility and loss and grieving and appointments and confusion and anger and hurt.
 This place where we yelled at God and asked hard questions and evaluated our faith and developed through the trials a relationship with our Creator beyond what we could ever comprehend.
This place where Brandon frightened me to the core with a severe head injury. Where I took care of him as he recovered.
This place where we formed friendships that will last for our lifetime, and memories that will break any fall.

This place, where we came home from buying our second home together - only to find two hours later that we were being sent to Virginia.

That place.

I don't have any idea what that place holds. Or what God will guide Brandon and I through together there. I know it will be good. I know it will be hard. And I know His Spirit goes with us.

So I am excited for that place.

But transition has a way of provoking reflection, and so that is where I find myself tonight.

Reflecting on the journey. Reflecting on an end to Colorado.

A couple nights ago I laid in bed next to Brandon and began to think about the lives around us that for the last several years we have been a part of - that we will soon not get to see everyday.

I began to list off the changes that were happening whether we were here or not.

Babies who I love with my whole being, that will grow up whether I am here to see it or not.
Strong, incredible women who will have new babies this summer, whether I am here or not.
Engagement periods and wedding plans that will be made, whether I am here or not.
Boxes that will be packed for others' own moves, whether I am here or not.

I began to run through this thought process with my incredible husband by my side, at first completely torn apart by all that I felt we will be missing, and then by the realization that so much of life is happening,
with or without us.

This stopped me dead in my tracks with the heaviest feeling of this entire process so far.

We are given only the time we have, in whatever place we are put.
Once that time is up, it is gone.

I turned to Brandon with total desperation and teared up as I asked him,
"Love, did we do everything we could while we were here?"

"No."

No, we didn't, he proceeded to explain.
There were likely opportunities that we missed.
We didn't do everything we could have.
But we did do some.

Some.

But...is 'some', enough?
Does 'some' change lives?
Does 'some' reach into the souls of the people we love passionately and bring them to a God who loves them infinitely more and save them from the reality of hell and bring them to a redeeming grace?

I cried in his amazing arms as I reflected on the relationships that are about to change, the potential opportunities missed, and the insane amount that we love the people we have here.

Have we shown them that love completely?
Have we done anything that has made a difference?
Have we given ourselves absolutely?
Have we ended this place leaving behind anything of value?

I cried.

And then I smiled, as the man I love went on to explain to me that despite our often flawed and lacking human selves - that God brings beauty and glory that we aren't even aware of.

He reminded me that we are privileged to be able to be a part of certain lives as God sees fit, but that our incredible Redeemer will continue to work in the lives of those we love, long after we are gone.

HE alone is capable. HE alone can show love, bring healing, and change lives.

We just got to sometimes be a part of that, in this place.
We just get to experience His goodness, and our entirely imperfect lives get help reveal the perfection of who He is.

I wiped my eyes and sat up and began to evaluate what we are leaving behind.
What difference, if any, our presence has made here.

What difference, HUGE difference, others presence has made to us.

We are all changing, constantly. Being shaped by the day.
We all have a group of people in our lives, contributing to what we are becoming.
We all have influence and ability to make positive differences, show incredible love, and leave this world better than we find it.

We spent the past several years with those kinds of people.
People who shaped us, stood by us, contributed to us, influenced us, and left us better than they found us.

We said 'see you later' to one of those key people last night.
Someone who left one of the biggest impacts on our lives of anyone we've ever known.
Someone who we love.

And that's when it became real, change really is happening.
We are really leaving.
Colorado is truly coming to and end.

Things will be good, no doubt, but they won't be the same.

We will never be in this place with these people again.

So what have we done with the time we have been given?
And knowing now how it feels to end a chapter, what will we do with the time we have ahead?

I want to be a person who shows love, brings joy, and most of all
points people to the Creator of their souls.


That is the only thing worth leaving behind.
That is the only difference worth making.



"If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing."
1 Corinthians 13:2