Recently, it seems, I have corresponded with several women whose lives have been turned upside down due to a move. Either these women are retiring and have moved to the place of their dreams or closer to children. A few women with whom I have spoken have moved due to corporate transfers. I recently heard from J... who has moved 11 times in her marriage and now her husband is retiring from the Air Force. Yesterday I spoke with a missionary who has returned to the U.S. Happy to be "home" with family, she mourns what she left behind - her "home and family" on the mission field. One thing is for sure - Although moving can be an adventure of the most exciting sort, it can also be a life changer - a challenge that threatens to destroy. After my last move, I wrote the following:

The Flood Gate Opens

Genesis 7:11 “… all the fountains of the great deep burst open
and the floodgates of the sky were opened.”

Yesterday I buried my best friends. Gone are my lunch buddies and community chums. My tennis partners, their children and husbands also disappeared from my life. My next door neighbor and my friend from across the street are gone also. I buried the ladies in my Bible Study and the children in my Sunday school class. I am grieving the loss of my pastor and his wife. I will never see the florist or the mailman again. The hairdresser had become a best friend. She is gone along with the teenagers who bagged and carried my groceries. It wasn’t a wreck on icy roads that took my friends nor an earthquake or a tornado. They were not even together when I lost them. This event that caused great sorrow in my life was a unique disaster. I was the only one in attendance at this desperate occasion. I grieved alone. I suffered in silence. There was no one to console me. This was an unusual event because the people I loved had not been typically buried, laid to rest in satin lined caskets or dropped into the cold frosty ground. They were not even dead. Yesterday morning I painfully wrapped each dear soul in wonderful warm memories and stuffed my friends one by one deep into the hidden chambers of my broken heart.

Father of all compassion,
You understand and know the heartache I feel. With tears flowing and a heavy heart I drove away, not from a graveyard, but from a home where my sons’ growth charts are etched into the utility room door. I drove away from a peaceful garden where I had dug up earth and planted flowers, shrubs, and trees. With dread and sorrow hanging over my future, I put behind a community that only last week was full of life and purpose and comfort. I drove away, not from a bad wreck or a natural disaster, but from a life that had now come to an end. Yesterday I moved. I turn to You for consolation. Do not abandon me in my grief.

Luke24:15 says “…Jesus himself approached and began traveling with them.”

What does this mean for you today? Be comforted, knowing Jesus is traveling with you.