What a busy two weeks this has been! We’ve been to Dallas for an incredible worship conference hosted by Gateway Church, we’ve spent precious time with Pastor David Flanders and his lovely wife Joy (here all the way from Souls Harbour Church in England… yes, the very same place we are going!), we’ve been privileged to lead worship for our main services at The Crossing, and we’ve started sorting through everything in our home to determine what to give away, sell, keep, etc. It seems like only moments have passed, and yet here we are – two weeks closer to our move to England.

The reality of what all of this means is really beginning to sink in and we’ve begun the awkward but necessary process of asking for help. Our last blog put it out there as did Pastor Randy at our services this last week. It is at this point that we would like to pause to give an enormous THANK YOU to those who have given or have committed to give. We know that very few folks have extra cash lying around just waiting for a reason to be used. Even our own budget before all of this left very little room for additional commitment without some sacrifice. So, to those of you who have made that sacrifice to give a one-time gift or commit to monthly support for any length of time, know that we recognize and appreciate the significance of your gift. Again, thank you. Our Prayer Needs page will soon be updated to show the progress towards our financial targets. Now, back to my original topic…

In our 12+ years of marriage, I think we have moved 8 times. Moving to England will be our 9th move. After that many moves, we have a good sense for just how much effort is required, but there’s always been a decent amount of reality that we’ve been able to avoid. You know, those boxes full of “stuff” that you just can’t make yourself get rid of, but you don’t actually need, so you just move the boxes from place to place, storage closet to storage closet, attic to attic and so on. The problem is that with each move, we’ve managed to acquire more of “those” boxes. Add to it that our last move was to downsize, and we have even more that has been stuffed away out of site. When we made our last move, we made the statement that we would hoard no more. This time, we would go through EVERYTHING as we packed and get rid of anything extra. Well, we ran out of time to pack and just decided to move everything. SO, then we decided we’d take care of it when we unpacked. We would finally go through all those extra boxes. Well, you can probably guess what happened. So now, we have two attics – the house attic and the detached garage attic – FULL of boxes of “stuff.” Some of it was worth keeping (i.e., baby items in hopes of needing them again, etc), but a lot of it is… well, I don’t even know. But this time around, we will be forced to face this giant. Lord help us, because we are going to need it!

As we deal with this necessary but annoying challenge, I know that the end result will be worth it. When we are finished, we will have truly separated all the junk from the items of real value. And as I consider how freeing that will be, I think about it from a spiritual viewpoint. How much junk is stuffed away in our hearts and minds because the reality of having to deal with it is just too overwhelming, maybe even too painful. So we keep it stuffed away, pretending it’s not there. But choosing to do this can have consequences. We are not as sensitive or as nimble spiritually. When God attempts to draw us to a deeper place with Him or wants us to step out for Him, we are held back by the weight of the stuff we’ve stored away. We want to go deeper, to move forward in Him, but the stuff (hurts, unforgiveness, disappointment, bitterness, sadness, selfishness, pride, entitlement, distraction, insert your example here, etc.) gets in the way.

So my encouragement to all of us today… let’s get rid of the stuff. It’s that time of year anyway, right? Spring cleaning! So, let’s take some time to ask the Lord to search our hearts and help us bring to the surface and deal with any stuff that keeps us from moving forward freely in Him. It might be tough, but in the end, it will be well worth it. (Hebrews 12:1, Philippians 3:12)

Blessings to you all and more to come soon!

- Connie