stacks on stacks

I feel like I have been in a constant state of movement for the last four years.  I moved into the dorms, I moved out of them, I moved into my college house, I moved to Oregon for the summer.  I moved back to school.  I moved to Oregon again- but this time when my summer job was over, I didn't have anywhere to go, so I moved home.

In September, I moved in with my dad and my sisters.  I romanticized the idea of sharing a room with my 14 year old sister, which was good at first, until I remembered I am an introvert and I need ample amounts of alone time.  Quickly after moving home and getting settled, I found myself moving again into my mom's guest room.

There are emotional aspects of moving, and these things I know well.  But there is also a physical weight of picking things up and finding them a new home.  Some things are easy to part with, other things I keep.  I keep them in hopes that having them will make the next place feel a little more like home.

This last time I moved, I was good about tossing things I haven't used or thought about in years.  (I found a box of earrings that I definitely have had since 2005 and definitely haven't worn, so off to Goodwill they went!)  A few weeks ago, I cleaned out boxes that were still in storage in the garage of my childhood home.  I cannot begin to tell you what I found when I was searching.  Holding onto things I don't need is one of my many gifts.

I did find some oldies and some goodies though.  Included in this collection of goodies were six journals that I have kept over the last several years of my life.

Every time I move, I try my best to purge things that are unnecessary, but I am so grateful that somewhere along these made the cut.

In the process of moving, I was organizing things into my new little room when I found these in a box along with letters, pictures, and a few of my favorite movies.

It might not seem like a lot, but I spent more than an hour reading through them, carefully, but also with great delight.  Inside of these books are stories from my high school years, time I spent at summer camp, my freshman year of college- all the way to the day I graduated.  They are full of sermon notes, workshop and training notes, Sunday afternoon to-do lists, calligraphy practice, small group musings, prayers & praise.

But more than anything, they are words that tell the story of redemption, of the Lord's hand in my life, and the way He has brought me to a place I now call home.

The oldest journal in this pile (though I am sure there are older ones tucked away elsewhere), I kept while I was on work crew when I was sixteen.  It was the first time I had been away from home, and I learned a vast amount that summer. I flipped it open to read some of my sixteen year old thoughts, and expected them to be embarrassingly naive.  What I found however, was proof that the Lord was working in me many years ago.  On one page is scribbled, "I know for sure that God, in all of His glory, created me for a very specific purpose."

Another documents my freshman year of college, and all the things I was thinking and feeling in a brand new world.   The separation of my parents and the loneliness I experienced away at school.  The classes I aced and the tests I failed.  They are all here.

I continue to learn more and more about Jesus the longer that I follow Him.  I continue to learn how carefully He has worked together so many things in my life.  I continue to be amazed at the way He knits and the way He redeems us.