Changes.
Changes, y'all. Big changes.I felt so melancholy a few nights back, I wanted to just crawl out of my skin. I sat in bed, nursing Juliette... staring out the window... praying with Stuart. The sprinkler was watering the field off in the distance and it's faithful tick-tick-tick gave a rhythmic undertone to my heavy heart. Do you ever feel that way? 
In the past six months, we've moved farms. Lost two of our dogs. Had a new baby. And last Friday, Stuart finished his last day of teaching for the foreseeable future. What the heck, man.What's a girl to do with all these cha-cha-cha-changes? 
'Retiring' Stuart to the farm wasn't exactly what we had in mind. Our entire life structure since we first got married centered around him earning his degree, getting a teaching job, moving to Alabama for our first year of teaching, and then moving back to Washington for another three years of teaching here. Teaching is what our family knows. School community is what we know. And here we are.It sorta feels like streaking, buck naked, through an open field. Sorta amazing! And also sorta weird. This freedom... it's strange. To pursue different avenues of passion. To feed our dreams. 
Right now, much of that is devoted to building our farm. We're in the depths of the kitchen remodel and have been laboring over the garden beds all week - planting, tilling, weeding, tending. 13 new rabbits joined the colony a few days back and our broody turkeys are due to hatch their eggs any day now. Cecelia will be bred in a few months. Pigs will farrow at the end of summer. Oh yes, make no mistake, there is much to do.Last week also marked the final days of our newest (and best!) cookbook Family Table. As in got the proofs, sent to the printer, batta bing batta boom. Batta bing batta boom makes it sound easy. Lord help me. It wasn't. But it's done and that is a huge victory for us! Can I get an AMEN? 
Our doTERRA family is growing every day and is some of the most gratifying work I've ever done. I couldn't love this work, this company, and my co-workers more. I had no idea when I began sharing essential oils a few years back it would turn into our family's main source of income and that we would get to bless so many people along the way. It all feels a bit like a tornado right now. Not that it's always crazy (though it is), but as life goes, it's turning out exactly - and nothing - like we had planned. I could've never anticipated having our own farm to build this year, or Stuart finishing teaching at a school that we 'thought' was our forever school. I never would have thought I'd be sharing doTERRA, promoting a new cookbook, and writing a BRAND SPANKIN' NEW homesteading book with a REAL PUBLISHER (due out Spring 2017!) - all while Stuart finishes his Master's in Classical Christian Studies. And, by the way, home-schools our children. And does pastoral assistant work at our church. Lord - my cup is OVERFLOWING with awesomeness. (I capitalized overflowing so you could really feel my enthusiasm.)But with all this joy, this incredible richness, there is pain and uncertainty. There is mess, there is disorganization, there are deadlines. Two of my dearest friends and their families are moving away from the school, and subsequently our church, as well. I had to say goodbye to them and my heart leaps to my throat just thinking about it. I have to trust in God's divine plan, sovereignty, and purpose. Pretty much like I have to do every day around these parts. Surely I'm not the only one who wants to weep when they see a beautiful head of broccoli? 
This mix of human emotion... I suppose it's good to feel it all as a reminder that we are human. We feel. So many feelings, my friends. I lay it all at the Lord's feet. While a lost friend, a hurting child, a sick animal, or a book deadline, might not be big news in the history of the world... it's big news in my heart and in this home. I'm learning to continually, and faithfully, work each day for that day. To live each day for that day. To pray more. To worry less. And to give thanks for the incredibly complex ways the Lord works in our lives and in the lives of those whom He loves. Change is growth. And growth is good. And Amen.