Has it really been a year?

One year ago today, my family woke up in sleeping bags. We'd just spent our last night in the empty rooms of our Beaverton home. On the agenda that day was something really hard: driving away from that home and into the great Colorado unknown.


I cannot believe a year has passed already. I still can't read my last Oregon blog post without crying a bit.

Happy and settled as we are in Colorado Springs, I get a little misty when I think about the fabulous people and places we left behind. Just last night I was chatting online with a dear friend I visit taught in Beaverton. Our conversation brought back fond memories, as well as a few sad twinges. I miss so many people, the luscious green trees everywhere, the rain, the coast. I thought I'd grow old in Oregon. My plans don't always work out.

But sometimes (well, most of the time, I'm finding) life isn't about what I want or what I think I need. And I have to say that I'm very happy with this particular not-what-I-wanted step in my eternal journey. This move has helped me grow in ways I couldn't have grown if I had been rooted in the familiar and the comfortable. I have seen with greater clarity the hand of a loving Heavenly Father directing and sometimes clearing my path. He knows what I need. He knows what my family needs.

I never could have imagined that after just a year in this place, I would feel so at home or have friends so dear to my heart, but I do! And in my wildest dreams, I could not have pictured marking this anniversary with a baby girl in my arms, but I am! It's funny how life turns out. Funny, and kind of great.