May 23, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

Well, we made it to Virginia. As I write this, it is our first week here. My memories of this place have left a lot out and it is more beautiful than I remembered. For most of my life I have had a dream to live in a pretty country setting. I felt that I was too much of a city girl and country would be hard on me. At the same time I have always thought it would be awesome to sit at a window, look out at nature and write. Well, God has handed me my dream on a silver platter and I am in seventh heaven.

The house we are in sits on a hill. The kitchen window looks out on a river. The other side of the river is a mountain and it goes straight up. One morning as I was wandering around in the kitchen I looked out and saw a crane on the river bank. He was so majestic. I called Junior and we stood there for the longest time watching the crane.

In front of our house is a train track. As a child we lived down the street from a train track and I loved listening to the trains as I drifted off to sleep. I am not finding the sound of the trains to be intrusive – they in some ways are a comfort to me. We have taken a few walks already and again, I am amazed. The road we walk on follows the river, so we see lots of beautiful scenes. Once we saw a crane flying along, scooping down and back up again.

The house we are in is very old, 80 – 100 years old. There is one clothes closet in the whole house. There are lots of dressers and they help store things. It is exciting for us because the washer and dryer are on the first floor. Well, there is only one floor and for the first time in our lives we have the washer and dryer on the first floor. It is a small house – smaller than we have had in a long time. That being said, the rooms are roomy rooms.

I am having fun reading magazines, on how to make the most out of a little space. The walls are all paneled – dark brown – yuck! My thought process at this point is, how can I brighten the place up. One thought is to hang white sheers. My mother-in-law Irene used to hang sheers and put the curtain rod outside the window frame. The windows looked bigger. My thought is that all the white sheers would brighten up the dark paneling. Next all the floors are carpeted – dark browns, reds, gold add to the darkness. We want to find area rugs with light colors to help lighten up the darkness. It is fun making my brain work at decorating. The bathroom is a special problem. The carpet is red, three walls are paneled and one wall has yellow linoleum on it. Yuck!!! Still, I am hoping to find an area rug that will tie these colors in nicely.

At this point, I find myself feeling anxious. I now want our Redford house to sell – real bad. I don’t want to go back to Michigan to live. Still, we feel that this is where God wants us to be. We prayed and felt that Virginia is where we are to be. I need to trust God. I need to wait patiently. In the meantime, I need to enjoy myself, to wait on the Lord and to trust God.

My question for you is what are you feeling anxious about? Are you allowing God to be in charge or are you trying to control it all? For me, when I have that need to control, I find that God allows me to struggle until I am willing to let go and allow God to be in charge. A few years ago, we put our house up for sale. We prayed. I struggled and wanted the house to sell real bad. I could think of nothing else than the condo that we wanted to live in. In the end the house did not sell. The day after we took the house off the market, I found out that I had cancer. I was so happy that I was in a familiar place while I went through radiation. In the end, I felt that God truly knew what was best. This time, my goal is to not bargain with God, but to wait upon the Lord. As I write this, I ask that each of you to pray asking God to help me to wait upon him.

Love

Janet

Genesis 1:20

And God said, “let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.

Genesis 1:24

And God said, “ let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds; livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its own kind.