a wide place

Hello friends! Lots has changed for our family in the last few months, and probably the biggest change is that we moved last week.

This morning when my family left for church, I sat down in the quiet of our new house, boxes all around me, trying to sort out all my feelings about this enormous transition.

I’ve just kind of been living in survival mode for awhile now. There were so many goodbyes those final weeks in Columbia and I simply had to face them one at a time, and not fall apart. I don’t regret that; it’s what I needed to do for my family. But now that it’s over, I find everything’s hitting me like a wall of grief.

So prepare yourself for a rambling blog post.

As I’ve thought about this move, I’ve been struck that as a ministry family, it’s a gift that God allowed us to live in one place for 13 years. Actually we lived in Columbia 14 years, and owned our beloved house for 13.

Columbia is home for me. It’s where I raised my children.

I think the hard part is that every one of us thought this was our forever home. We’d just had a pool put in our backyard, for crying out loud. So there was no preparation for such a huge transition. I’m thinking back to my birthday blog post at the end of January, and if you’d told me then that we’d move to a new state by the end of the summer I simply would not have believed you.

But God had other plans for us, and if 2026 has had a single theme, it’s been “Surrender.” Again and again each of us has had to surrender his or her own dreams, plans, expectations, to God, trusting that He’s good and He’s safe to trust.

That’s an ongoing process, and we’re all at different points in the process.

Back to Moving Week.

Judah came home August 2nd from ten weeks of working at his camp, Deerfoot. We had two precious weeks with him before college move-in, and even with the incredible stress we were all living under, I cherish those memories of the six of us together under one roof. Even though the roof changed during those two weeks.

We had so much help from friends and family all month.

People showed up, brought food, moved furniture and boxes in the sweltering August heat, sent texts of encouragement, scrubbed our house, gave hugs, ran errands, loved our children, brought gifts, prayed for us, and just generally helped us to not feel alone. Even though I was very aware that we were leaving them.

I’m more humbled than I can express for this love.

I’m used to being in a position of giving and helping others, and along with “Surrender,” 2026 has been a year of “Receiving” — care and kindness from the body of Christ.

It’s changed me.

Even looking at these pictures, my heart aches with all the people we miss.

My own family of origin had a big move my freshmen year of high school, and I’m comforted to know that the friends we left behind in Orlando continued to be lifelong friends to us.

I also give thanks to God for our incredible house. It was a gift to our family from the time we bought it, in July 2013, to the day we left.

We were able to turn a small, nondescript brick ranch in our price range, into what was in many ways our dream home.

And it’s probably for the best that we had a huge move and purged lots and lots of things from our attic, basement, and workshop. Now that we’re in the new house, I feel more purging is coming as I wonder where on earth to stick all these books. It’s a good problem to have, I know, but good grief.

Have no fear, as I type this David is putting up another ceiling-height bookshelf to get us started. I think it’s become our family trademark. Judah’s already requested one for his bedroom here, and Ami assures us she plans to put one in her adult home one day.

On Thursday the 13th, we loaded up the last of the 23-foot UHaul, and David, Judah, Ami, and Noah hit the road for the 5-hour drive to Tennessee.

Gabe and I stayed back a night for two reasons: one was our pup, Rue, and the other was my houseplants! There was no way I was leaving them in the van overnight in the summer heat while we stayed in a hotel.

We spent the night at David’s parents’ house, and enjoyed a last evening with them.

I also ran to the pet store to find something to help Rue with the long car trip. She does not love to ride in the car. I wish I could say this doggie melatonin worked — it did take the edge off, but she still panted for the whole five hours and slept maybe 10 minutes?

Gabe and I had such a fun road trip together on Friday morning. [Side note: this is what David and I have learned to do in stressful seasons of life; you seize on the small moments and decide to make a memory out of them]

I had Gabe make us a Spotify playlist for the drive, and we stopped at Starbucks and introduced Rue to a pup cup. He also humored his English-major mom by listening to a two-part podcast series on the movie of the Odyssey vs. the book. Since he loved the movie he enjoyed it too.

I’ll treasure that road trip memory, both of us with our dog on a grand adventure to join our family in a new life.

David and the kids did the walk-through of our new house before we arrived, then he and I went to the closing while the kids hit up McDonald’s and a nearby park with the dog.

Five deacons from our brand-new church were waiting at our home after closing to unload an insane amount of stuff. And one of them came back later with Papa John’s pizza for our first night and cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

And here we are!

We had a lovely, quiet first weekend together before David, Judah and I turned right around and drove him back to Columbia for college.

More on that soon!

Love, Julie