goodbyes and changing Definitions.

As I sit here with our last hours in our home slowly passing by, I can't help but reflect on all that these walls have seen. This house saw us coming home as husband and wife, wedding dress, suit and all. Bringing our daughter home. Our first anniversary. Fights. Joy. Love. Excitement. Last days at jobs we've left. New job offers. Prayer. Discernment. Sorrow. Parties. Family growing. We've lived a lot of life in these walls in the last two and a half years. I've walked around this house today more times than I can count, holding back tears and letting them flow as we prepare to say goodbye in the morning to this place we've called home, this place where memories have flowed. This summer has been a crazy one - evidenced by the fact that I haven't written a blog since June - and I'm ready to get to Idaho and be in one place for longer than five weeks at a time. I'm ready to unpack, to settle and make a new home with my family. My family. I get misty-eyed just saying that. I'm going with my family. You see, I've been so blessed ever since graduating from college to be close to my family - my parents, my brother, and now, my newest sister-in-law. While my parents, brother, and sister-in-law, are all staying in Colorado, Anthony, Monkey and I are not. But I'm still going with my family - my husband and my daughter are my family. They have been ever since our wedding day and her birth (respectively), but this going to Idaho solidifies that and reminds me of Genesis when a person leaves his (or her) mother and father and clings to their spouse. That's me. That's us. Right now. Through the tears and the goodbyes, I'm still going with my family - even if the family I've grown up with stays here while I journey with my 'new' family elsewhere. My family - the one I grew up with - is still coming with me. There's a closeness we find through our faith, bonded by the communion of saints, the sacraments, and our participation in the Eucharist. Christ bonds us together, even if miles separate us. Praise God for technology and airplanes, but this transition is going to be more emotional than I thought. I keep flashing back to a hotel room and saying goodbye to my parents as I started college some 26 hours away from home. That experience formed me and helped make me into who I am today - and I am so grateful for that. I know that God has called us to FOCUS and that this transition will make me and form me into who He is calling me to be, even if that means some sad, parting tears along the way. Even if that means my parents won't necessarily be right there when our next baby is born. Even if that means I'll miss some things in Colorado and they'll miss things in Idaho. There is so much I'm going to miss: the family I grew up with, this house, the grocery stores I'm used to, the community we've built, the friends we've made, so very much. But there is so much I'm looking forward to, not only in our mission, but as a family, as a unit being strengthened for the journey God is leading us on. If anything this move is a reminder that this world is not our home: heaven is. We may be headed to Idaho, but ultimately our goal is heaven. May we all get there someday, by nothing more or less than His grace. (p.s. We won't have internet in Idaho until the end of the month so the blog will probably be quiet...again...until then.)