Tomorrow we travel back down to Winchester to empty out the last belongings and close on our house. I am excited to get it done and close that chapter of our lives and move onto the next. We were so blessed to meet so many wonderful people in Winchester, but now that we are here we know that we are beginning another new and exciting chapter of our lives. When we moved to Winchester, our marriage was completely in the dumps and we were both mentally and emotionally exhausted from many situations we had gone through. Looking back, I can see how our time in Winchester both gave us some time of healing and also some time of battling through issues as a couple. It also gave us the opportunity to minister to those in need in South Dakota and minister to Youth within our church. It gave me time to learn that I really needed to show Christ's love to Chris no matter how wrong I felt he was or how right I thought I was. I also needed to come to a point of surrendering our marriage and family to God. Lots of Christians think they "surrender", but when it comes down to it, I don't believe many of us truly have. True surrender involves humility and brokenness. Our Christian life is a journey, but I can see now that he had us in a place during these past 6 years to teach us some pretty deep stuff and now we are ready to move on. We are a little stronger and ready to be more and more radically devoted to Christ. We struggle, but we keep moving on.
Our pastor today spoke about being a "fan" of Jesus or being a "follower" of Jesus. Being a fan involves being "religious" and "legalistic" while being a true follower of Jesus involves being transformed daily into a closer image of Christ. My prayer is that I keep journeying on trying to become more like Him. My prayer for you is the same. He has us all at different places for different reasons - just don't quit journeying on.
