Leaving Portland

I am sitting at the Portland airport awaiting my flight to come home.  I've been gone since Thursday.  I'm ready to go home.

A few days before I left, life came to a head.  Much happened in a very short period of time. Leaving home to come to Portland was at a strange time, I thought.  I was scared to leave home and come here.  I didn't want to leave Rick.  I didn't want to be away from my place of comfort. But somehow I just knew that God needed me to go and let Him do His work. And it wasn't just something I needed.  Rick needed it too.

To say that God spoke to each of us is an understatement.  

I don't know how much you know about life in Portland, Oregon.  Whatever your life is like, this life is likely completely different!  The consciousness about the environment is to the extreme.  People are laid back, happy, relaxed, not stressed! Even the babies and pets are relaxed.  I don't think I heard a baby cry all week.  Dogs just sit on the sidewalks while their owners are in stores or restaurants.  I was at so much peace. Yet, I was shown that there is such another way of living .. a way that I want to experience .. a way that I want my family to experience.  We need to change, folks!  We need to start living!  The people here don't care about fashion or exquisitely styled hair and makeup or extravagant houses or nice cars or all the luxuries.  Those things just don't matter. At first it was weird! At first it appeared that people have little to nothing!  But, who's happier? I can certainly answer that! I want some of that .. I need some of that!  We are irresponsible if we don't do some of that!

Rick had an eventful weekend himself.  First, he had to do the "Thursday" schedule, which he was quick to tell me "sucks" (and it does).  Friday went okay, I think, except that there was a monsoon that practically flooded our property. On Saturday he woke up to no power.  He muddled through with the kids.  At 4:30 in the morning Sunday morning, Brynne started throwing up and was sick the rest of the night and all day Sunday.  The older kids came home Sunday night from a weekend youth trip.  Today, it's back to the schedule.

The schedule ...

Things ...

We have boxed ourselves into a way of living that we have found that we often can't do what we truly want to do.  We are tired of that.  We are planning some major changes. These changes are not because of the problems we have been having in our marriage.  We are not running from something, but toward something.  These changes are out of necessity for us to truly live, and living "abundantly".  Abundance is such an obscure word.  It means something completely different to me today than it did one short week ago.

One week ago today, my life changed.  But it was the day of a new beginning .. a real life .. not the one you think I should live, or even the one I have been living .. but a life of real living.

And I can't wait to do it with my husband, and my children and the rest of my family.  I have never been happier than I am at this moment.  I have never loved Rick like I do right now.  And to know that he feels the same way means everything to me.