Tuesday 4 - All About Moving

 

Tuesday 4: All About Moving (No, I am NOT moving again).



Welcome to Tuesday 4 kept up in memory of our friend Toni Taddeo who began it several years ago. She would be so pleased to see people keeping up with it!

Let's talk about moving today.

1. How far away are you from where you grew up?

This is the front door to my parents' home, where I grew up. 

Right now we are about 69.8 miles, according to Google Maps, or about 1 hour, 22 minutes. We moved from a farm in Pennsylvania when I was almost six years old, to a small town in Florida.  I grew up in a little town called Tavares, Florida.  I loved growing up there. I lived there from the time I was in first grade and all the way through high school and until I got married and moved away. My dad built the house we lived in, and he and my mother lived there until they died, which was about 54 years from the time daddy built the house. Then, sadly, we had to sell the house, but a sweet neighbor lady bought it to have for her family to come and stay in when they came down for the winters, etc.   I miss our family home, but because my parents are no longer living there, to me there is no reason to ever go back. I would be expecting to see them waving at me from the front door, and it would just be too sad. I prefer to remember it the way it was...and I know my parents are in a much better home in heaven, waiting for me to come "home" someday.

2. Families sometimes move all over the country. Do you feel that a family should try to stay close together? 

Well, it depends on the family and the circumstances. Every family is different. In our case, my husband was called into the ministry, and that caused us to make many moves, to graduate school, seminary, and then to many different places to minister. It was hard to be away from our families back home, but we knew that we were doing what God had called us to do. It had many, many challenges and there were many bumps in the road, but again, God was with us and took  care of us in ways beyond our expectation and imagination.  And when the time came for us to change from the pastoral ministry to a different kind of occupation, we did come back closer to home so that we could be near our parents in their latter years and help take care of them.  That was a blessing that we were very thankful to be able to do, but we would never change all of the years that we were also blessed to travel and move to new places, and meet so many wonderful people and do what we knew God was calling us to do.

3. How many times have you moved in your life and would you like to share when and where you moved?

When we got married, our soloist sang the song "Whither Thou Goest, I Will Go" at our wedding. Although the song is actually quoting what Ruth said to her mother in law Naomi in the book of Ruth 1:16, the wedding song was intended to be the bride speaking to her husband:

"And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: 

for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: 

thy people shall be my people, 

and thy God my God"

Little did I know when I chose that song to be sung at our wedding just how often I would be saying, "Whither thou goest, I will go..."  It would take a whole book to tell the whole story of all of our many moves over the past almost 52 years of marriage.  As a matter of fact, that is the book that I have always wanted to write, but probably never will.  The title of my book would be "Giant Leaps of Faith and Other Crazy Moves" if it is ever written.  I've shared some of those stories in previous blog posts over the years.  I don't want to give you a number of the times we have moved, because most people would gasp and faint if they knew.  But there was a good reason for every single move, and God was with us in every situation. Some were for better, and some seemed to be for worse, but we were together and we were answering the call of God to serve Him in the ministry, and He was always always there for us and met our needs, oftentimes in mysterious ways.   Let's just sum it up this way:  

• We started out in Florida, our home state.  Hubby was finishing his senior year in college when we got married.
• From there we went to Georgia to work at a Christian college and boarding academy
• We came back to Florida and hubby taught school and also became a Florida State Trooper, something he'd always wanted to do,  and we started our family.
• We felt the call of God to prepare for the ministry and so we moved to a graduate school to study the Bible in S.C. and also in N.C. for further study.
• We came back to Florida and began our pastoral ministry
• We moved to Ohio for further Seminary and so he could eventually complete his M.Div. all the while pastoring in churches and/or working bi-vocationally by teaching. I worked in schools or did whatever I could to help out financially, while raising our three children.
• We went back home to Florida and then to Georgia and then back to Ohio, where he completed his Doctor of Ministry degree, also while pastoring churches...
• We pastored a church in Michigan
• We pastored a church in New Hampshire
• We moved to Kansas for hubby to teach in a Christian College and I managed a bookstore, but that did not turn out to be what we thought it was going to be and we moved back to New England where our kids were.
• We lived and worked in Maine for a little while and then eventually moved back to Florida to care for our elderly parents.  Two of our adult kids moved back with us. Our middle son was married and stayed in Maine with his wife and eventually his son was born there.  Sadly, our middle son died after a four year battle with cancer.  We tried to move back to Maine to be near him during that time, but could not find work or any way to make that move. It was a very difficult time for all of us.  But at the same time, we were needed here in Florida to take care of our parents, and there really wasn't anything else we could do.  And God took care of our son in ways that we could not.  He knew what was best for all of us, and we did visit him as often as possible.  I wish we could now be closer to our grandson, who is now 21, but again, God knows what is best and we trust Him to take care of our grandson as well.
• We are retired now and still live in Florida.  Our elderly parents are all in heaven, waiting for us someday, as that will be our final move to our eternal home.

4. What brought you to where you are living now and are you happy there?

We now live in a small town in Florida, and our two remaining adult sons also live in this town. We moved here because our oldest son met a very sweet young woman who lived here, and married her and moved here. We fell in love with the little church where they were married, and longed to be settled somewhere where we could be a part of a small town church and community. And so we sold the house we were living in, which was about 30 miles from here in the middle of a national forest, and out in the boonies away from everything.  We moved here to this house on Still Waters Pond, which is lovely, and we are much closer to church, stores, doctors, hospitals, etc., and is exactly what we need for our "golden years".  Life on Still Waters Pond is very pleasant to us, and we have our two sons and daughter in law near, and we are very content and happy. 

 Even with all the moves and changes in life, I do not regret one minute of it. We have lived quite an exciting adventure, and have met so many wonderful people along the way that we could never have met if we had stayed "home".  We answered the call of God to serve Him, and He took care of the rest.  

"Then He (Jesus) said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Matthew 4:19

"Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” 

Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

Isaiah 6:8

Thanks for joining in!!

Now MOVE over to the Tuesday 4 page and see what others are sharing today about their moves in life!