The smoke monster won

Well Amy and I are moving again. Not to West VA this time-since we are already here-but to another more capacious and smoke-free condo. We battled the smoke monster, not the one from Lost (this one was invisible and comprised 2nd hand cigarette smoke), for too long. It just became apparent last week that our "firearms" (this time like the smoke monster from Lost) were useless against the beast.

So after a month in Sleepy Hollow, we shall move to another, older community. We definitely got our money's worth in the "sleepy" department because we could hear our neighbor's 4 am alarm clock and concomitant snooze button pressing. So that was at least as advertised, in some strange sense.

Providentially (why do I feel the need to say this, when I believe ALL things are ordained by God?) another condo opened up the day after Amy and Connar came for their first visit in January, and we just figured it was out of our price range. Little did we know we would be renting out our house in Bradenton for the same price just a month later. The condo was still open this past Saturday when I got clearance to end our lease.

So that leads me to the question I've had in my head the last few days. Why didn't we just move there in the first place? Why did we feel strongly that Sleepy Hollow was the way to go in order to be good stewards of our money?

Could it be that a particular family we met will eventually come to Redeemer (we've been praying hard for one)? Or that Amy can build on the relationships with young mothers she made in the month of March? Could it be that God just wanted us to lose our deposit and have less money in our account, and so depend upon him more?

The answer, my friend, may be blowing in the wind, but it's also part of God inviting us into His story of redemption. Often we just don't get these specific answers, and it is more often than not futile and frustrating to even seek and expect something so clear.

Ultimately though the story of many small happenings in our lives is being incorporated into the over-arching story of Jesus bringing His glory and Kingdom to Earth. Our mundane stories collide and are caught up into the meta-narrative of God.

I don't know why this temporary move had to happen-and I'm not saying this in a complaining/self-pitying sort of way-but somehow it happened for the over all purpose of God's glory and our good. Even mistakes we make, if we did indeed make one this time-and I don't think we did-are still good for something: His glory and our display of that glory. Fortunately or else I'd walk around angry all day long.