If I have learned anything over the last year, it’s that all of my surroundings are temporary and could change at any moment. Even as I sit here among the last of the boxes to unpack, I’m painfully aware that I don’t know how long our present circumstances will last. It could be 10 months. It could be 10 years. I haven’t a clue, but today I’m okay (well, kinda okay) with that.

This perspective is so much different than the one I had when we owned our last house. Though we talked about moving to Tulsa “one day” for years, the temporariness of our present circumstances was never real to me. I never really considered actually leaving all our friends and church family in Oklahoma City. Even when it was obvious our current neighborhood was quickly becoming unsafe to live in, I still never really conceived leaving our home of nine years.

But now, on the other side of our wilderness wanderings, I’m very aware of how temporary it all is. Even as I consider decorations and painting, making the house ready to sell and being good stewards of it while we have it is always in the back of my mind because I know this house and the stuff in it is temporary.

This is the lesson God’s trying to teach me, but it’s a hard lesson to learn. Taking my eyes off of the here and now, what I can see, and placing them on eternity and then the people around me takes a lot of practice.

Daily, as I walk around boxes still yet unpacked and feel my stress level begin to climb, I have to remind myself that these two little boys need me. When they grow up, they won’t remember all the boxes. They won’t even care, but they may remember a mom who was too stressed and busy to play with them.

Instead, I want to give them better memories. I want to let the boxes sit a few more days, or weeks, and go outside with Ethan and Liam to practice swimming with them. I want to play catch and explore our new surroundings. The boxes and stuff will always be there, but these little boys won’t and neither will this moment to teach them about a God who loves them and show them in the flesh what that kind of love looks like.