A mess but still a good mess.

Last month Josh wrote about our newest change coming up; moving to the ranch in the spring. We are excited and thank you all for the encouragement. 

Lately though the whole thought of packing and moving has me all flustered, stressed and anxious. 

The thought of keeping three kids alive, keeping the house decent enough to function in and packing all while Josh works...uh, not exciting. 

I'm getting comfortable in my house. There's a routine that we all have throughout the day. I know where almost everything is in my house. I know where to shop when I get out and I am getting familiar with the food isles. 

How am I going to pack each room? How do I move a house full of stuff to our new place that's two hours away? I know that finding a trailer isn't super easy.  I wish I had the energy to throw away crap each day. These silly stupid thoughts will jump in my head, while I'm thinking of something else,  creating chaos in my head, just like multiple tabs open on a computer. 

18 months ago we moved Internationally with a 3 year old, 23 month old and a 4 month old. So yeah, this should be simple. Also, I'm not the first person to do this. 

So when this fear and anxiety over packing, moving out to the children's ranch, and restarting comes there's only a couple things that I can do. 

1.) stop. We still have to live here for the next two months. Realize that there's not a lot that I can do right now. Also, "do the next best thing!" 

2.) say the fear out loud. It was the craziest thing when I realized how much of a burden was lifted when I said out loud what I was feeling. And it wasn't until a week ago did I realize that there was a fear, I thought it was a mix of things but never, I'm scared about moving. 

3.) pray. This really should be the first thing that I do. But I don't always. God is so good to know already what is going on in our lives. But knowing that we can come to our Heavenly Father and talk to Him...wow! 

4.) list what I'm thankful for. Choosing joy isn't the easiest thing but it does take the focus off of the hard and it brings to light things that are true. "The joy of the Lord is my strength!" 

So, please pray for me. I know that you do. This is something big right now and it's scary, exciting and fun.  Really it just means that it's a mess!  A good mess too. 

I'm so thankful that we've had this time to live near the city, experience life, and become a little more familiar with things here. And yes, we will miss certain things here but I know that there's a lot of exciting, challenging times ahead. 

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. - Philippians 4:8