One month in a new home

Earlier this week, I looked around our new house and sighed. As of today, we've been in Colorado for a whole month. I thought I'd be past the moving-in stage by now. Instead, miscellaneous office stuff is piled in the front living room, the school materials are piled haphazardly on (and near) the bookcase, and the kitchen table wasn't cleared off for dinner again tonight.

It isn't like I've just been sitting around doing nothing. I see how much is still left to be done and forget about that we have done in the past month.

I forget about all the meals I've cooked. Because of Lauren's food allergies, we don't get to eat out at very many places. I took a night off of cooking when the movers delivered the household goods, but otherwise, I've carried on with meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking just like always. I even found a handful of new recipes that we've tried in the past month.

I underestimate the time I've spent at doctor's appointments. Lauren's first big cardiology appointment was just a day or two after we moved in. We knew it would be a long day, but it was longer than any of us would've expected -- six-and-a-half hours at the hospital and a grand total of twelve hours gone away from home that day. She's also had two pediatrician appointments, two trips to get labs drawn, a pulmonology appointment, and countless trips to the pharmacy.

I don't remember that making time for fun is important too. I've had visits with online friends that I could finally meet in person, mornings at the library, and a girls' night with a friend visiting from Washington DC. All of these were precious moments that would've been missed if I had insisted on unpacking everything right away.

I forget that it is absolutely impossible to make progress unpacking boxes and organizing stuff if I spend six sitting with Lauren in a hospital room that's an hour and a half away from our new home.

I focus on the cluttered kitchen table and don't acknowledge that all the dishes are neatly put away in the cabinets and that the pantry is stocked with food for the week.

I cringe at the mess on the bookshelves instead of remembering to be thankful that I've found all the homeschool materials that we need right away.


One of these days all the boxes and messes will just be a distant memory. A friend reminded me that all the boxes will get unpacked in God's time.

Sometimes I wish that God's timing and my own expectations for myself coincided more. That's where grace comes in, and that's perhaps where I struggle most -- extending grace to myself.



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