Between Chapters

A transition, done well, is nearly imperceptible. The author moves neatly from one aspect of a topic or narrative into another aspect without jarring the reader. Each chapter of life is full of transitions, some of which we navigate quite smoothly, and most of which we do not. Most of life's changes are mediated by transitions. There comes a time in every story, however, for which a transition just will not do. This is when the author must end one chapter--however gracefully or forcefully--and begin another. Semi-permanently moving your whole life from one continent to another is much more like the ending of one chapter and the beginning of another.

Yesterday--January 1st, 2012--we arrived in Sydney. It's hard to quantify how long this journey has taken us. We began pondering it two years ago. Then about one year ago we started taking steps toward making it happen. Just last summer we started seriously questioning the feasibility of the whole thing. And all throughout the last six months we have seen God's providential hand confirming that we are indeed suppose to sojourn in Australia for the next few years. And so we have spent a good four weeks packing up our lives in L.A.--physically, socially, professionally--and shipping them off to a new city. And we've spent the last couple of weeks on the liminal point between the old and the new. It's been a spiritual estuary of sorts, with lots of looking back and even more looking forward. And much like the Sabbath day in the Genesis account, it has been a time of ending and beginning.

We intend this blog to be one of the ways that we make sure that all the good things from the chapter that just closed get carried forward into the next chapter of our lives and our marriage. It will allow us to intentionally reflect on the way that chapter one--the three-and-a-half married years we spent in LA--have prepared us for life and discipleship in this stage of life. This reflection will naturally provide an interpretation, projected backwards, of what God was doing in our lives in LA. So whether you were part of our lives in LA or OZ, we hope you can find something to rejoice about, pray for, or maybe just laugh at, on this blog. And whatever you do, keep us posted on what you're up to!