Our days in the desert are coming to an end. After just 11 days on the market, we sold our home! We accepted an offer on our house that, by God’s generosity to us, was above our asking price.

Our days are filled with expectant hope for our new life in Oregon. But, for now, we wait. We savor the time left with our friends while packing up our things into cardboard boxes. We count down these hot summer days, crossing them off on the kitchen calendar.

It’s not just the people I will miss. I’ll miss our beautiful, spacious, comfy house too. We’ve loved coming home to Winslow. This is the first house we’ve owned. This house saw me become a woman, a mother. Here is where I brought home all three of my newborn babies. Here is where we grew from a couple into a family of five. 

Here is where I became real. Here is where God in His severe mercy, broke me and exposed my deep, deep root of sin. And here is where God, in His relentless loyal love, has been rebuilding me, reshaping me. He tenderly, daily, prunes the death-giving branches, and enables me to drink life from the Vine, from Himself. Here is where God has held me secure, and I am profoundly changed.

While I love this house, I’m reminded that it’s just an earthly tent along my pilgrimage to my true home. In reading through Psalm 119, I came across verse 54,

“Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.”

I’m reminded that this life is not where my treasure lies. God is my true Treasure. Houses are not unimportant, but neither are they of great importance. This is simply a “house of my sojourning.” I can carry the songs of God’s statutes in my heart wherever we might be.

And so we wait. And play. And swim. And ride horses. And live. These last Arizona summer days are gifts.