I believe. Help my unbelief.

I don't pretend that my life is hard. It really isn't. However, lately I've been stretched. For a long time we waited for the right time to move to North Carolina. We are now here, and doing well in our church, thankful to finally be near some family, and making friends. These are great steps towards feeling at home.

However, as a woman, a fair part of my identity lies in my home. My house! I feel guilty saying that. I feel like my identity should be almost entirely (maybe 65%?) in the Lord, and maybe, what...35% in my family? I don't know. But at least part of how I feel, lies in my surroundings. How my house looks is how I feel. So lately I've been feeling unsettled. In between. In limbo. We've done pretty well, these last 6 months or so. But recently, we've found out that our house in Pennsylvania won't be closing when we thought. Its back on the market. This is hugely disappointing, when we thought we were finally starting take some spinning plates out of the air.

God asks us to thank him in ALL things. So I've thanked Him for this season in our lives that's hopefully maturing us in our faith and trust. Shann has been very encouraging to me that everything will work out. We've said maybe the Lord will work out the timing in a better way, or we'll get a better lot to put the house on. Everything works together for good, right? But not necessarily for what we think of as good. Maybe we will lose (more) money. Maybe we'll be in our apartment for longer than we thought. "Good" doesn't always mean the way I'd want it to turn out. Good probably means the testing and maturing of our faith. Sigh. :)

So I've thanked the Lord and been alternately quite stressed about the situation. A friend reminded me yesterday that I can be trusting the Lord congruently with feeling sad and frustrated. And this has helped me feel less tugged upon.

But Mark 9:24 will continue floating about me in the days to come. And that's alright.