Lately I’ve been wrestling with the concept of “home.” Is it a place? A feeling? The presence of those you love? We’ve moved three times in three years, the last two of which have been interstate re-locations. We moved from bustling urban life in Maryland to a picturesque suburb in Middle Tennessee to a sprawling coastal city in Virginia. And yet, at the moment, we find ourselves without an actual home.

My husband got a new job—a great job—one that would move us closer to our families, eliminate his weekly travel, and provide stability where we hadn’t had any.

Eventually.

Read the full post at Grace for Moms...

I turned 32 Sunday, two days after driving from our just-emptied rental near Nashville to an extended-stay hotel in Virginia Beach.  My husband and kids were so sweet, making me breakfast and taking me to lunch at a bay-side  café, after which we spent the afternoon counting washed-up horseshoe crabs and leaping dolphins. That night they indulged my months-long craving for hibachi and painstakingly picked out and decorated a double chocolate cake for dessert. Friends and family called or sent messages saying they hoped our transition was going well, that we were “getting settled,” and loving our new adventure.

In most cases, I didn’t have the heart to tell them none of those things are happening. My little family gave me the best day they could muster, and it really was great. There are definitely blessings evident in our midst, and others that are dangling in the distance.

But can I be real, friends? Pretty much not one part of this transition is “going well.”

I could bore you with details about the undercover cops in the lobby and the overwhelming odor of marijuana when we arrived at our hotel. But then you’d scratch your head at why our first instinct, upon discovering this, was to go ahead and unpack our bags. We’ve gotten so accustomed lately to simple things becoming complicated, things you’re supposed to take for granted being absent, that we just roll with it. Getting out of our lease in Tennessee has proven to require Herculean efforts, an exorbitant amount of money, and now, legal counsel. Acquiring a new midwife in Virginia Beach has thus far required Vanderbilt sending my records a grand total of three times and five re-schedulings of my first appointment. At nearly 22 weeks pregnant, this is not encouraging.

We’ve been living in a hotel for over a week so far, and we likely have 6 more nights to go. I say “likely” because here it is, Friday afternoon, and, due to ubiquitous "forces outside of our control,"  we’re not 100% sure whether we’re moving into a short-term rental on Sunday or whether we have to wait until next Thursday; we’re not yet certain if our mail is being forwarded to the right place. Daniel was without a phone for the last week; I finally got the cough and cold the rest of the family had in Tennessee; I could go on and on (but for your sake, I won’t).

I don’t mean to complain, though I know that I am. I have been with my blessed children in our two-bedroom suite most of every day. Daniel leaves before they’re up, I feed them, we “get ready,” do school, then try to find a place to go for a few hours before I crash from sickness and exhaustion. They are doing remarkably well, but I’m tired of shushing them, tired of not having anyone to talk to all day, they are tired of always sharing their space, their limited toys, their bed. There have been nights Daniel didn’t return until 9:00 or 10:00 from his job that is very much wanted and very much a blessing but, at the moment, sucking the life out of him. We have a tiny portion of our stuff, and I like to think I’ve been resourceful with it, but it's all getting old.

I had hoped to wait to write, to share only when things were settled, better, easier to navigate. But quite honestly, I don’t know when that’s going to be, and I guess that would be kind of disingenuous anyway.

All year I’ve had this book near me, until recently on my kitchen counter and now beside my rented bed: Choosing Joy. I bought the book because I desperately believe that you find what you seek and peace and joy are what I've been wanting to find. I believe that happiness and, ever much more importantly joy, are choices that we make and must not be tied to our circumstances.

But choosing where to focus my attention when the difficulties scream so much louder hasn’t been easy.

I hate that my husband and I occupy the same space for less than two waking hours per day during the week, but until recently, we only saw each other on the weekends, so for this I will choose to be grateful. I hate living in a hotel, without any concrete idea of when certainty and security and stability will find us. But I will choose to be grateful for our ability to be together, for our health, and for God's provision, however day-to-day it feels. I hate that I wasn’t prepared to homeschool my daughter the way I’d always intended to be. But I will choose to be grateful that she is loving all of it so far. I will choose to be grateful for the extra time with her, and that I have thus far been able to convey all of this as a great adventure to her and her little sister.

Even as the days tick by and there is more of this pregnancy behind me than before me, even as I still don’t know where we will live when we welcome our son, I will choose to be thankful for his apparent health and frequent movements that were just strong enough for Mirabella to feel them for the first time. I thank God for these reminders about what really matters, even as I long for stability and home. I will continue to seek the joy and the beauty in little snatches of every day.

And I pray that we are deep in the throes of learning whatever it is we’re supposed to be learning so we can go ahead and move on.

It's our last night in Tennessee. Just about everything is packed in boxes, many of which are stacked high above my head and crowd every room, and some of which include things that weren't meant to be packed (like all my hair care tools and every single one of Emerie's dolls). It feels like we just did this because we just did, a little over a year ago. It was almost automatic the way we systematically purged every room and sorted drawers and cabinets into Ziploc bags. But it's not the same.

We always knew Tennessee was not a final destination of any kind, but we were determined to make it home while we were here. And I guess we did-- in what I now realize was kind of remarkable time-- though it didn't feel that way while it was happening. We are so grateful for all we learned and saw and for the opportunity to have met and cherished new friends while we were here-- friends we will miss dearly. We fret over what all this continuous change will do to our little daughters, and while we have validated their feelings of loss, we have also tried to frame this whole thing as a big adventure, even when it doesn't feel like it to us.

Tomorrow we start our trek northeast to Virginia Beach, where we do not have a home. We will live in a series of temporary housing until we finally find a place to call ours. I don't know when that will be, only that it won't be as soon as I wish it was. I am halfway through my pregnancy with our first son, whom we are delighted and blessed beyond measure to be welcoming in January. We are excited to have the chance to live at the beach, if only for a while, while we search for our home. After years of research and considering, I had to make the abrupt decision to homeschool Mirabella, at least for now, as we wait out this season of constant change.

None of this is how I thought it would be, and not only that, none of this is going the way I wish it would. We have what we need, we are grateful for new opportunities and provision and, really, all of this, but it's uncomfortable and just about everything is uncertain. I thrive on creating a feeling of comfort and stability and home for my family, and I don't know how to do that in a hotel or in a short-term rental or when I can't even envision the space where I will bring home my newborn son in a matter of months. But we love and we hope, and we trust and we pray and we are reminded that none of those things need to be housed in physical spaces. We are learning to take it day by day (and sometimes even in smaller increments than that).

Tonight I held my five year old as she cried conflicted tears. I listened to her lament: She does not want to leave. I told her I understood how she felt and tried to help her consider the positive parts of the move, without negating her sadness. Because I really do understand. There are parts of me that don't want to go either. But the larger part knows what this opportunity holds for our family: togetherness, all the time, not just part of the week. A place to settle, eventually. These are things we haven't had.

I realize also, though I couldn't articulate it simply enough for Mirabella, that all of this sadness means we were awfully blessed while living here. We had such beautiful experiences and met such wonderful people that we don't want to leave even though we know how good it will be for us in the long run.

Thank you, Tennessee, for making us feel so welcome. We have loved our time here. Your beautiful green hills, warm friendship, creative spirit, random celebrity sightings, fried green tomatoes, and fabulous independent music will always hold a piece of our hearts.