What I Learned in July

1. A soft abdomen is actually a good thing.

In addition to all the background checks and tests and fingerprinting and such that we had to do for our new job, we also had to get physicals! So the week before we left for training, we went to our doctor for a regular physical, and this will just crack you UP. Ryan had his first and was done and out running errands, and I was still at the office having mine done. The doctor was talking to me about this and that, and then he scooted over and started poking my belly. As you might imagine, having my belly fat jiggled is not super high on my list of enjoyable ways to spend a Thursday morning, so I just sort of tried to ignore it and not wonder if he thought I was related to the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

After I left the office and read through the paper he had filled out for work, I saw a line that said "Abdomen." Next to it, he had written, "Soft." I bristled and said out loud (to Braeya) "Well it's TRUE, but we don't TALK about it, and we CERTAINLY don't write it down." (She walked away. Not interested.) Ryan's paper happened to be on the kitchen counter, so I grabbed it to see what his abdomen line said. I was anticipating nice and firm or delightful six pack, but you know what? IT ALSO SAID SOFT!!!!

When he got home, he explained to me that in medical speak, a soft abdomen is a good thing. It's not a judgment against my spotty workouts as of late. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

2. Saying goodbye takes more time than you might think. 

I knew it would take a while. I even told Ryan as we accepted the new job that we should anticipate a rush of people wanting to get together one last time as the time to leave drew near. And it happened! In the last two weeks, I think we had someone to meet with almost every single day. And we had to say no to some because didn't have more days left. It's a beautiful thing, though, to feel that loved. We were so grateful.

3. I know less than I even know I know. 
I stumbled upon this list this month, and I only knew ONE of the things on there. ONE!!!!!!! How many do you know?

4. Professional croquet is an actual thing. 
Our first weekend in Grabill, the director of Gateway Woods and his wife invited us over for dinner. We loved our evening at their home and thoroughly enjoyed talking with them! One of the things we learned in one of the stories he told, is that professional croquet is an actual thing. He said the little mallets and wire domes and balls that we think of when we think of croquet are just for regular games. But there are fancy sets that look a bit different and cost lots of money - and professional teams with uniforms and everything. Did you know this? I did not! But I looked it up when I got home - and there's an association and everything!

5. There are mold-sniffing dogs. 
Several weeks ago, I stumbled upon the show Hotel Impossible. Have you ever seen it? It's this guy who travels (traveled? Maybe the show isn't still current) around visiting hotels and resorts that were in financial distress. He would assess their problem areas and help them try to get back on their feet before they had to close. Earlier this month, we saw an episode that had the worst hotel I'd seen yet. Among its many problems, it had bed bugs, serious mold issues and KILLER BEES!!! The guy from the show ended up walking away because the owner wouldn't work with him and he said he couldn't stay and try to help if she wasn't willing to meet him halfway. But anyway, as they tried to figure out how bad the mold issue was, they brought in mold-sniffing dogs. They worked kind of like a drug sniffing dog in an airport, for example. They would walk down the hall and if they found mold, they would sit beside it. It was fascinating. Who knew?

6. Minivans are not as intimidating to drive when you're used to driving a crossover. 

WillowBridge has a minivan that we use when we're transporting our tenants or doing other work-related tasks. I was nervous to drive it the first time, because I remember back in my high school and college days, driving my parents' minivan was always quite an experience. But back then, I was driving a very compact car, so a minivan was really different! But we drive a crossover, and when I got behind the wheel of the minivan, I discovered it's not quite as intimidating as it used to be! Of course, I'm still nervous to be driving a vehicle that doesn't belong to me, but it's still an improvement.

7. A dragged-out move is harder than I thought.

It took us three weeks to pack our house to move, and then it took us another two and a half weeks to actually move. Living in a temporary apartment, out of a select grouping of boxes and suitcases, turned out to be more challenging than I thought it would be. I've always known I thrive on nesting and homemaking, but this really solidified it for me! It's a blessing to finally be able to be fully in one place - even if we still have some settling to do!

I had exactly three weeks from the time I packed our first box until the time we left for training. Packing was my full time job! And then from the time we left for training until we actually moved our things - almost another three weeks! Two and a half, to be fair. It was much harder than I expected to handle that meantime. We did a pretty good job of guessing the things we would actually need in that middle time, and only a few times did I really wish for something that was in a box two hours away. But I did have to really pray often about the safety of our home before we got back to it to pick up our things. It was a fabulous exercise in trust, but sometimes I didn't trust as well as I wanted to. It was the best kind of day when we were reunited with the pieces of our home and I got to start nesting and making our home.

***

So as you can see, it was a month FULL of learning - and that doesn't even tap into all the things we learned in training for our new job!

Meanwhile, here's a peek at how I did with accomplishing my July goals!

1.  Finish packing the house for our move.

I did it! (Had to! We moved!) It was, in some ways, the strangest move ever, but I was really thankful for the time I was able to spend packing intentionally, making decisions about what to keep and what to part with (knowing I might make even more parting decisions upon arrival). My little moving binder and I were VERY HAPPY!!

2. Organize for our second garage sale.

Done! Both our sales went very well, actually, and I was thankful for the amount of things we were able to sell. We had less than a carload of leftovers at the end of the sale. I was also really excited (at both sales) to hear people say they appreciated the organization of the sales. I wanted it to be a clean and good space for people to shop, and it seemed to work!

3. Say goodbye well.

I'm sure there's always room for improvement and there are probably several ways I could have done this differently, but I felt like we were able to see a lot of people before we left, and we were able to have great conversations about the work we were headed out to do! I was so thankful I had started packing early so we had the time to carve out for these goodbyes!

4. Become attentive, absorbing students.

I feel like we learned a lot during the last couple of weeks, and I've been encouraged at the amount of information I remember without peeking at notes. We still have a lot to learn - both about concepts and about specific tasks, so this one should probably carry on into my goals for several more months!

5. Make our move as easy as we can on our Braeya-girl.

We did our best, and I have to say that while it wasn't perfect, it went far better than our last move! (And that was a good thing because it was a long drive and I was on my own for it.) She also rebounded quickly!

6. Begin settling into our new home - and make it home. 

We'll be doing this for a while, clearly, but the very first day we moved in, my friend Julie and I unpacked the entire guest room (which is where we are temporarily staying while we get our new bed assembled in our master bedroom) and got it all set up AND partially decorated. Ryan got the couch assembled and I even made this cute little corner in the kitchen - just because cute things make me feel at home. So even though there's tons of work to do, we're getting there! And it does totally feel like home. That is true. 

Dreams and Goals for August 2020

How is it time for August goals already? July was both the longest and shortest month on record in Shafferland, I think! I feel like it flew, but at the same time, the 4th of July was about 100 years ago. (Is that just because of our busyness or do some of you think it was 100 years ago too?)

I'm making a few goals here for the merry, merry month of August!

1. Unpack and settle in.
We are now officially, totally, and completely in our new place, but there is still much work to be done before we can be accused of being settled in. We know that the bulk of August will be about that. Much of our free time will be spent settling, and I want to do it thoroughly and completely. I'm excited to envision the pieces that make up our home in their new space of a home.

2. Find a bit of rhythm with the job.
Though our training is far from done and will continue for a while, we have completed our concentrated training days and have officially reported for duty. We have to figure out our rhythm in the house, both with our tenants and with our co-workers. It will take some time, we know, but we'll figure it out. Like I've said a few times on the blog already, I know that life in this role won't always (ever?) be structured and predictable, but we are looking forward to at least making some plans!

3. Figure out our boundaries.
We've been told that it's very easy to just work all the time and never take time for ourselves. It's the peril of working in the same environment where you live. We've also been heavily encouraged to NOT let that happen - and to recognize when it begins so we can fix it. We know we won't do it perfectly at first, but this is really important, so I'm making it a goal for the month.

4. Get our mask game in order.
Indiana recently mandated mask usage in all public places, and we've discovered we need to change our mask game because of it. We don't have too many of them, and we've already had to drive back home from stores because one or the other of us didn't happen to have one on our person like we thought we did. My plan is to purchase more so we always have some in our vehicle (in case I happen to be without my purse, which is where we currently stash them all...) and always have some in our apartment and our work office and Ryan's truck and...you get the idea. We're learning already that living and working in the same place means we don't always have the same supplies with us that we used to when we were always moving from place to place. (Living in a small town where we walk many places also complicates our former mask plan.)

5. Meal plan! Cook!
It's been nearly impossible, over the last half a month, to have a consistent cooking plan. We've been on the go so much, and we've had a lot of meals shared with others. We've also been separated from most of our main cooking tools, but now that they are back, I'm so looking forward to getting back to cooking and planning. (It's part of nesting for me.)

6. Work on some scrapbooks.
Believe it or not, I did keep up with scrapbooking while we were mid-move, but I am still behind. It'll be a good creative outlet for me, too, so I'm looking forward to resuming it! We've captured quite a few memories over the last few weeks, particularly!

Peeking at Packing

I wanted to at least have one post about packing - for personal posterity more than anything else, probably.

Our move to Kokomo was my first time to properly move anywhere in my life. (When I moved out of my parents' house after college, I didn't really have much to my name, so I didn't feel like it counted as a true move.)

Four years ago, I spent a good month packing a little at a time, and then the whole move went wonky when we ended up bringing the stuff over early on an unplanned day, and it wasn't all entirely packed, and we moved the garage on a different day, so although it went well (meaning we got everything moved), it wasn't the smoothest move ever in life. And I wanted this time to be different.

And it was.

The first key, I think, was having less stuff. Even though I had done a LOT of purging before we left Marion for Kokomo, we still had more stuff than we have now. I labeled more boxes then - and didn't even get to make labels for all the boxes we moved. We downsized quite a bit more this time and I have a feeling we'll be purging a few more things as we settle in.

Fun fact about this move: we saw our new apartment on day of our interview, but because we didn't know if we would get the job, it was really more like taking a walk through someone else's home than looking at our own potential home. We didn't measure anything, we didn't take pictures of anything, and there were some rooms (like their kids' bedrooms and the laundry room) that we didn't even really see more than a quick peek). So when we got the job, we had no idea how many square feet of living space we would have or the dimensions of the rooms - nothing. Rob did send us a printed layout of the apartment, but even it was a bit different than how it actually looks, so it wasn't fully accurate. Therefore, as we packed to move, there were some things we weren't sure we'd have room for, so we just packed them and decided to figure it out on this end. We didn't get to walk into the apartment with a measuring tape until four days before we moved our things.

When we moved from Marion to Kokomo, I bought this planner from Etsy, and I loved the way it helped me organize the move. I had master lists of all the boxes and what was packed in each one. I had printed labels for packed boxes and could make copies of those labels for my moving binder too. It was really, really helpful. In fact, I have continued to use it these last four years to find things in storage!

So when we prepped for this move, I pulled it back out of my digital archives and started printing new labels!

I started packing in the rooms I felt like we could safely live without the most. The guest room, linen closet, and guest bath were the first to make their way into boxes, followed by my beloved home office. (I did keep out a few of the things I thought we would continue using, like pens and tape and sticky notes and such.)

The week I started packing was also my last week to work at the church, so I could only pack in the evenings. The second week, Ryan was still working, but I wasn't. I mostly packed during the day that week and then we had a lot of goodbye meetings and dinners in the evenings after Ryan got home.

The final week of packing, we were both off work and spent much of each day (and some evenings, too) finishing the job.

Though I did the bulk of the organizing and packing, I was so thankful for all the help Ryan gave. He found all our boxes for us, he carried the heavy stuff out to the garage after I packed it, and on that last week when we were both off work, he jumped right in and helped pack the boxes while I labeled and prepared them. Teamwork for the win!

Quick side note: even though I try to be fairly open and transparent about our life when I write on the blog, I am aware that it is a public forum and therefore there are some things I choose not to blog about ever (not hiding anything, just choosing to keep some parts of life reserved for us) and some things that I choose to blog about on a delay for privacy and/or safety reasons.

This move has been a tricky one for me to blog about freely because we were unable to actually move to Grabill when we began our training. Rob and his family were still living in the apartment that would become ours and it just worked out for them to stay in it a bit beyond our training arrival. Because of that, our stuff was waiting on us in Kokomo, and we were living in temporary housing for the first 2 1/2 weeks. I didn't really want to announce that on the blog - but we're all reunited with our things and our girl now, so I'll be catching up here over the next few days.

We are thankful that the new owners of Shafferland 2.0 went several extra miles (literally and figuratively) to house-sit for us in that transition period. They spent time at our/their house every day, caring for Braeya, making sure the house was okay, and taking care of our plants! It helped ease my mind so much to know they were there watching over everything. Braeya LOVES them, and we could tell when we came back for our mid-move visit that she had been well-loved and well-cared-for.

And now I'm excited to UNpack all the things and assemble a new home for us!!

To the New Owners of Shafferland 2.0

To Our Friends and New Homeowners...

It's been just over four years since Ryan and I signed the papers to buy Shafferland 2.0. Even though it was the second home we lived in, it was the first time we'd chosen and purchased a home together, and we were so excited for all it offered us. We loved the layout, the central air (first time in LIFE for me to have that), the attached garage, and the location. We couldn't imagine anything more perfect for us, and it lived up to everything it promised.

Though it was move-in-ready when they handed us the keys, we never stopped working to make it more and more our own. We did projects that were so much work - but also so much fun! With every room makeover, we felt like it was a little bit more ours, and we loved it.

We had no idea that the entire time, God had a dual purpose running for that house. It was ours, yes, and He let us enjoy it, love it, mold and shape it. He let us make all the memories there that I've been writing about for the last couple of weeks. But He also knew what we didn't that entire time: He had a new assignment for us waiting in the wings, and prepping this house wasn't just about us. It was about you, too.

A couple of years ago you moved to town, and I still remember the Sunday they showed the video at church, introducing you as part of the pastoral staff. I remember seeing you all in person for the first time and thinking what a nice family you were. I remember hearing about how you were on the hunt for a house, but it was hard to find something that worked for your family.

And then I joined the church staff a few months ago and I really got to know you. I remember on my very first day, being included in the office lunch to celebrate your birthday, Pastor Shane, and your whole family was there, and I was so impressed with your kids and how you're raising them. I remember enjoying conversations with you in the office and hearing about your quest to find a house and how hard it was to even get in to see them because of how insanely hot the market had become in Kokomo.

God began slowly revealing the new plan for us, and I remember so vividly that night we "happened" to see you as you drove out of the neighborhood after looking at a house down the road. I remember how you joked that of all the houses in Kokomo, you knew which one would NOT be hitting the market - and it was ours, because of all the work we had just put into it during quarantine.

That was the moment I knew that if God opened the door He had already cracked (though you didn't know about the crack), this house was supposed to be yours. It made me so excited to think about it. It's always a joy to know you're a part of the answer to someone's prayers.

I remember the day Ryan called to see if you wanted to come over and see the house before we listed it. I remember the day you came to see it - all of you tumbling out of the van trying not to be too emotionally invested. I remember how you ate cookie bars and drank coffee and ambled around the house, envisioning whether or not it would work.

I remember when you came back with tape measures and notebooks the next night. And then I remember the day after that at lunch when you casually stopped beside me in the church kitchen to say you wanted the house - and then you called Ryan to make an official offer that night.

Though that part of the process was smooth, seamless, and clearly orchestrated by God, we did have our share of headaches about the buying process, didn't we? Appraisers who refused to come. Appraisers who backed out after saying they would come. The appraiser who showed up but left news we hadn't expected.

And still in all that, God, put a peace over our hearts that appraisal reports are just earthly details that don't matter for the Kingdom. We didn't hesitate in knowing that you were the ones for this house. Ryan and I knew that separately before we even talked together, and our faith was boosted by how God put us on the same page without any hesitation.

You told us you would love the house as we had loved it, and we know you will. We aren't even a little bit worried about that. We feel that lately, we've just been stewarding the house until it could become yours, and it has been our joy.

We are so glad this is going to be your place. It's a bonus joy to get to place our beloved home in the hands of friends. We are so glad it will continue to be a home that honors God, holds memories, and is a hub of ministry.

We've been working on our own new place the last couple of days, and we are so excited to settle in fully and make it into Shafferland 3.0. I think that's a bit easier to do when we know the place we're leaving is going into such good hands.

We know that we were part of the answer to your prayers, but you are part of the answer to ours, and we are so grateful. Thank you for all you've done to make this transition sweet and easy for us. Enjoy your new home. We sure love all of you and are so happy God picked you.

A God-Moment

I had a different post planned for today, but I was struggling to gather the words in an order that made any sense, so I decided to postpone that idea until I can wrap my mind around it a bit better. And in the meantime, I have a story to share that encouraged me so much! I hope it brings some encouragement to your heart too!

The story started almost ten years ago, and I blogged about a snippet of it back then. If you'd like, you can read that story here. But if you're in a hurry, I'll give you the short version:

Ten years ago, as I was crawling out of the heart-desert I'd lived in for a good chunk of the year, my friend Julie asked if the ladies' Bible study group at her church could go through a study I had written but not formally published. I gave them the material, and on their very last gathering night, Julie invited me to drive up and attend with her, so I could meet the people who had gone through the material. I did, and it was a heart-boost to me after so much hurt that year.

Yesterday, Ryan and I visited Jon and Julie's church for morning worship. In our Kokomo days, we were a good two hours away from them, and it made visiting on a Sunday morning kind of tough. But we're much closer in Grabill, so we headed there to worship with them!

When I told Julie we planned to visit, she said they were going to have an outdoor baptism service, so she understood if we wanted to wait until a more normally structured Sunday, but I thought a baptism service sounded like great encouragement!

So we went, and it was a beautiful day. We sat on our lawn chair loveseat in the shade of a giant pine tree, listening to people share how they came to faith and why they wanted to be baptized. A couple of young boys went first and then a half dozen or so adults shared their own stories. One by one, they dipped under the water of a huge pond, and it took me back to my own baptism in a pond, on a day very much like yesterday.

I appreciated all the stories I heard, but I was really impressed with the composure and articulation of the two boys.

After the service ended, Ryan and I hung around to wait for Jon and Julie, and as we waited, a woman walked toward me with one of those boys by her side. She said, "I know you don't know me, but a few years ago..."

She got about that far, and all the details clicked in my head.

You see, one part I did not mention in that original post was that during that visit to the Bible study, one of the women told me she had been so moved by the chapter on Jochabed (Moses' mother) that she decided to name her new baby Moses. That was a powerful moment for me - and I'm not sure now why I didn't mention it when I wrote the post.

A couple of weeks ago, as I packed up our home office, I tucked my copy of that Bible study into a box and wondered what ever happened to Moses. I couldn't quite remember how many years had passed, but I wondered what became of him as he grew.

And as the woman stood in front of me beside the pond, I realized that boy beside her was Moses. They had called him Mo in the service - and I never made the connection.

I had actual tears in my eyes as I stared at this articulate, faith-filled boy, still drying off from his baptism. I was trying to explain to his mom that I DID remember her and I DID remember the story of his name, but I'm pretty sure the words just tumbled out in random, stuttering order. And Moses probably wondered how anyone struggling to speak full sentences had managed to write a Bible study that had helped his parents find his name.

What an absolute gift from God that yesterday "happened" to be the day we visited their church. (We had planned to go last week instead and changed our minds.)

God is always in the details, and I know that. But when He gives me a glimpse INTO the details - it's a blessing indeed. And yesterday the detailed blessing came in the form of a testimony of a boy named Moses.

The Shafferland Shuffle

We are so glad that our season of living in transition is wrapping up! It will be so nice to be able to establish new routines! (We are aware that our new job isn't entirely about routine, but there will still be a chance to have SOME routine back in our day soon.) But in the meantime, here's a peek at another week of learning for us!

* Last Sunday, we started the day by visiting one of the churches in Grabill. I dialed down the Bekahrazzi, so I don't have any photos of church, but Ryan did take this picture of me making breakfast for lunch after we got home! We spent the afternoon doing a little more hands-on training - and part of that took place during a HUGE storm that took down a tree near our building! Ryan suggested getting pizza for dinner, and I did NOT argue with that at all. We ended the day with some online driving training! (Sunday was not a day off for us - our weekend was at an alternate time this week.)

* Monday's adventures began with Bekah re-learning to drive a minivan! (Turns out that's easier to do when you're not used to driving a compact car every other day. When I sometimes drove my parents' minivan in my high school days, it was a beast compared to my little bitty car.) We transported one of our tenants to work and then checked out the local coffee shop. Sigh of love. I'll have to tell you more about it later. And the big news from Monday? CLOSED ON OUR HOUSE!!!!!

* Here's a funny picture from Tuesday. Our boss's daughter named her doll Braeya (after our cat, of course), so when we found the doll in the van on Tuesday, we did a little Braeya Junior photo shoot. That day I learned that it's really fun to live in a small town where you can walk to the store for lunch supplies. That evening, Ryan helped Rob move some of the big things out of their apartment - the one that we're moving into. (No one asked for my help....what???)

* Wednesday was the first of our days off since we began training, and we started our "weekend" with a trip to Rise 'n Roll. PEOPLE!!!! We live ten minutes from a Rise 'n Roll now. It's the best of times for my belly and the worst of times for my clothes. We drove back to Kokomo, and our girl was SO HAPPY to see us!! (She's had fantastic sitters while we've been in training.) We spent the day seeing a bunch of people from both our old work places - and even got to have dinner with some of them! That was fun!

* Thursday we did some more work at our Kokomo house, and then we loaded up another carload of stuff - and Ryan's truck too - to head back to Grabill. We stopped to see my parents and they even took us out to dinner! We got back to Grabill without incident except for the ENTIRE bottle of coffee creamer that spilled in our cooler. I may not cry over spilled milk, but I sure will cry over spilled creamer.

* Before our training class on Friday, Ryan took me on a date! We went to the Mexican restaurant here in town, and we enjoyed it! Then we headed over to a class that didn't fit into our week-of-classes lineup. Learned all about the history of Gateway Woods - and both of us really enjoyed that class. And look at these beautiful views from our walk on Friday night! Poor Ryan - he'd spent two miserable hours on the phone working on canceling/transferring services, and THEY HUNG UP ON HIM!!!!  So the walk was definitely in order for clearing our minds, and it was so great to have a beautiful sunset to enjoy!

* Yesterday we did a lot of work in our new place! Yes, you read that right! Our new place! We both love it so much and can't wait to fully settle in and make it home! It was the first day we were able to walk through with tape measures and see what things will fit for real that we were pretty sure in our heads would work! (Always a risk, right?) It was so much fun to work in there together - and we had some help, too, from one of our new co-workers!

The Saturday Six

One.

This is little feel-good story you might like! Theo's mom is a friend of mine from my Marion days. We went to church together for a while, and her mom was part of the women's Bible study at church.  (Fun fact, Theo's mom and I also share a birthday!) Anyway, Theo has spina bifida, and for his quarantine birthday, he had an extra fun adventure. Take a look!

Two.

I enjoy reading Between Naps on the Porch, and this week she blogged about these glow in the dark pieces she purchased to put on her ceiling to see if it could look like a starry night. I found her thoughts interesting to read - and while I think it sounds like a LOT of work to put them all up, I also think it would be fun to look at when you're falling asleep!

Three.

Ryan and I have some wire shelving similar to this and we are weighing how we want to use it in our new space. We haven't reached a firm verdict yet, but I've been doing some Pinterest research to look for creative (and pretty) ways to use it, and I thought this article had some great options!

Four.

I normally won't share articles that are blatant ads, but I thought this one was well-written, so I'm sharing it. Pruning plants still TERRIFIES me. I remember when I was single and had rose bushes, I was always afraid of killing them whenever I pruned them! Maybe you're the same? Some good advice here!

Five.

I stumbled across a new-to-me (at least I think!) blog this week and while I think you might find many of her posts interesting, I particularly enjoyed her "How to Wear" series! Ideas on how to wear one piece of clothing several ways!

Six.

Source

I finished another Daily Grace study this week, so I wanted to tell you about it. A couple of months ago, when they were running a big sale, I bought a handful of studies, so I could just flow from one to the next as part of my time with the Lord each day. I've told you about the first two I did (Amen and Faithful) and when it came time to pick the third study, I sifted through my little stack, trying to figure out which one to do next.

The study on the top of my pile was called It is Well: Walking Away from Anxiety and into God's Word. I wasn't feeling incredibly anxious at the time (though anxiety is a common struggle for me) so I started to flip to a different study, but I felt a little tug at my heart to do this one. I thought it might be helpful as we made our transition to a new town, church, friends, and job.

Let me tell you what I liked and appreciated about this study. The last one I did (Faithful) was longer and more intense, and I'll tell you that at first, I felt like It Is Well might almost be a little too surface level. (I hate fluffy studies.) But I paused and realized it was actually perfect for this study to be shorter and lighter in depth.

Anxiety is a real thing and for those who suffer from it know, it can be crippling at times. I know my own struggles with it don't nearly reach the depths that some people face. When your mind and heart are so deeply overwhelmed, sitting down to do an intense theological study probably wouldn't be at the top of your list. I understand that.

It is Well is a three week study with five days of reading/study each week. Following the reading (which only lasts a couple of pages) you'll find three reflection questions that are deep enough to be helpful but light enough to not exasperate a hurting heart. And after the fifth day of study, there is a weekly reflection section to solidify all you learned over the course of the week.

I appreciated that the writer (Sarah Morrison) acknowledged early on the realities of depression and the deep, dark places of anxiety that go far beyond a Bible study "fix." If you're in a place that deep, definitely seek professional help and opinions!

This study is fully Biblical; each day's reading pulls from Scripture (and not just one verse, but a chunk of Scripture) and encourages the reader to seek truth from the Word to surpass loud feelings/lies of Satan/etc.)

I also appreciated that the study didn't discount the reality of feelings - or even God's ability to use them for our good. The writer didn't attempt to fix or dismiss problems, but she did encourage her readers to restructure thinking to find healthier mindsets.

And even though I wasn't anxious when I started the study, by the time I wrapped it up, I did have a few days when I wrestled hard with the details of the move - details out of my control. They made me anxious, and I was able to skim back through the study, read the verses out loud, and read over the study notes I'd underlined. It was so helpful in calming me in my time of need, and I was so glad I'd taken the time to do the study even when I wasn't sure I needed it. (I was also able to share some of the things I learned with people I had conversations with during this time, so that was an extra bonus.)

Is it the deepest theological study ever? No. Is it a completely appropriate study for a person wrestling with anxiety? Yes. It is manageable in length, helpful in content, and a great resource even for those who have anxiety-laden people in their lives.

(And it's on sale for $10 right now...and it doesn't look like it's sold out yet! And I don't think they have a men's version of this one...at least I didn't see it!)

Hello, Grabill, and Hello Training!

We still have several more things to tell you about our transition into our new chapter of life, but I thought I'd start by telling you about our week of training!

Because we don't have an educational or work background in social work, Rob thought it might be helpful for us to attend a week of training along with some couples who are new house parents. The work we will be doing is comparable to what they do, but there are some pretty big differences, too. Still, he thought it might help us better understand the young adults we'll be working with and the background of life at Gateway Woods if we went through that week of training!

Our training stay wasn't our official move - it was just a temporary stay. But we loaded up the car (even more than we did for our wedding...and it was full then) and headed to Grabill for our week of training.

 I pretty much couldn't feel my legs by the time we arrived, but they still worked once we tumbled out of the car!

The first night we were there, Rob ordered pizza, and we spent some time with him and his family, figuring out our schedule for the next week.

Posing with our new home...

And bright and early on Monday morning, we headed to our first training session!

Our learning that week was classroom-style. Different staff members presented sessions on topics that ranged from learning how to use some of the computer systems to understanding huge, heavy topics that impact daily life.

Even though we knew some of the sessions wouldn't directly apply to us in the way we go about our work, we found it really helpful to learn the information!

They brought in lunch for the trainees every day and most of the days we ended up with enough left over for dinner! That was really helpful, since our time for cooking was a bit on the limited side.

The training lasted from about 9-4 every day, and we stayed well supplied with coffee throughout each day.

When we weren't in training, we did some exploring around Grabill, trying to learn the layout of the town. (It's a small town, so we're learning quickly!)

We also got to enjoy a little down time in the temporary apartment where we stayed. It was really comfortable!

Oh! And I almost forgot...in between training sessions, we did take some nice walks around campus!

Our minds were so full by the end of that week of training, but our hearts were full, too. We knew (and still know) we have so much yet to learn, but we are excited for the chance to do this work God has called us to so unmistakably.

The training will go on and on - and in truth, are any of us ever really done training in this life? WE always have something to learn!

But what we do know is that we are grateful for the team of people we'll be working with and their commitment to take time away from their everyday responsibilities to teach those of us who are new!