We’re Moving, or the Providence of God

Last updated on: November 3, 2011 at 9:30 am by Amy Julia Becker

We’re Moving, or the Providence of God 2011-11-03T09:30:49-04:00 Amy Julia Becker

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My husband has a new job. It doesn’t start until July, but he was recently appointed as Head of School at a small boarding school in Western Connecticut. In the early summer we will move to a 4,000 person town and settle down for the foreseeable future.

The job is exciting. The people up there are lovely, as is the landscape. On many levels, I know our kids will love it. And yet a large part of me has resisted this move every step along the way. Some of it is just sadness over the thought of leaving this place we love–our church, our friends, the crossing guard who knows our kids by name, the easy access to a bagel shop and dry cleaner and pizza place. Some of it is resistance to change. But some of it is real fear for Penny.

We currently live in a place that seems to have been hand-designed for her. We’re within an hour of the best children’s hospital in the nation. We’re less than a mile from the Special Olympics Headquarters for the state of New Jersey. And I consider Penny’s elementary school the gold standard of integrated special education. How on earth could we move her away from here?

But as Peter progressed in this job search, I had a lurking sense that it might just be the right job for him. It might even be a vocation, a calling to serve a group of people, a way to use his particular gifts and abilities for the good of a whole community. We’d always said that our dream was for him to become the head of a small boarding school in Connecticut. And so I started to pray.

I investigated the schools in the area. They’re fine. They can’t offer the same resources as our local schools in New Jersey, but they are well-funded and they have therapists who come through to work with kids and Penny will be fine. But it still kept me up at night.

A few weeks back, before the final interview, I cried. I talked about all my fears, which mostly centered around Penny. And I said out loud, “I know God has already given me reason to trust, but I need more. I need more.”

The next morning we went to church. Our church doesn’t usually have themes for the services, but that Sunday it did. And the theme was fear. As I listened to the sermon, it struck me, God will take care of Penny even if we make the wrong decision. Even if we screw up, God is still going to be faithful to her and to us. We came to the end of the service, and the closing hymn was “Be Still My Soul.” I couldn’t ignore the words of the second verse:

Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.

We went to a funeral later that day. The closing hymn was “Be Still My Soul.” Just in case I wasn’t paying attention.

So we’re going. I don’t know how it will work out for Penny. But I trust that the God who has guided our past will guide our future. I trust that the God who has called Peter into this new job has also called our entire family to this new place. And I trust that it will be a blessing for us all.

Faith

family

providence

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