The Joy of Picking Up and Going
Blooming where you're replanted...
Into The Blue is about finding joy in simple pleasures. One of those pleasures is moving somewhere new and starting over.
I had been planning for a long time to use this post to narrate my big move from Maryland to live closer to my daughter and grandkids in California. I was going to tell you how we were crossing the country as we speak enroute to a wild, new adventure. I was going to tell you how we were so excited to travel and explore everywhere out west, a new playground for us.
But alas, I won’t be telling you that story, because it’s not happening. We are staying put in Maryland. By some bittersweet turns of fate, our daughter and grandkids have instead moved here with us.
Now, truth be told, this turn of events occasions a story I love as much as the joy of picking up and going, and that is the joy of planting roots. I adore Maryland, my true home, and am overjoyed to stay here. But that is a story for another day.
A Wild, New Adventure
No, today’s story is for my granddaughter, Pixie. She is now the one on a wild, new adventure.
Pixie is five years old. She is a bundle of energy. She is a bright ray of sunshine. She greets everyone with an unbridled enthusiasm most of us can only muster for our dearest loved ones. She makes everyone smile.
But Pixie’s life has been turned upside down. She is living out a tragedy beyond her control, beyond her comprehension really.
You won’t hear her complain about it, though. Why not? Because she is a ray of sunshine.
Pixie’s family needs a new start. So she, her baby sister, and her mom just moved all the way across the country to a new place near her grandmother and grandfather, Mimi and Happy as we are known. I used to be Poppy, but she renamed me.
Her first airplane ride. A new house with an Elsa bedspread. Waving from the front porch at every passerby. Meeting her great grandparents and extended family for the first time. Running around madly in Mimi and Happy’s backyard. This place is magical!
The other day she walked the main street of her new home town with us for the first time. The sun was out, and it was bustling with activity. Pixie loved the energy. She looked in every shop window. We ate ice cream, glorious ice cream. She reveled at the sight of ducks and geese in the river. There was a man outside a store in a funny hat blowing enormous bubbles. “The Bubble Man” she dubbed him. She’s exceedingly eager to visit him again. This place is a new playground!
Now mind you, Pixie’s only been here a few days. New friends are still waiting to be made, so many new friends. A new school with new teachers. The trolley trail that winds through enchanted woods around the corner. A literal new playground down the street. She doesn’t even know it’s there yet, waiting on her. Oh the joy!
Pixie, she’s just getting started. I can’t wait to see what she’s discovered after a month, a year, a decade. Seeing her journey through her eyes will be the delight of my life.
What a Wonderful World
That is the joy of picking up and going. New places are magical. You can reinvent yourself there. You can start again. You can discover so many new, amazing things. You can learn and grow and become.
Perhaps you need a new beginning too? Think about it.
But start by reaching down deep into your soul and becoming what you too once were – a ray of sunshine.
A Short Meditation
So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore. And they took him and threw him into a pit… Then Midianite traders passed by. And they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. They took Joseph to Egypt… [T]he Midianites… sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharoah, the captain of the guard.
It’s harder to find the joy when we’re forced to start over, whether that be a move or job loss or something else. But consider Joseph.
One day when he was just a teenager, his jealous brothers waylaid him and sold him into slavery. He went on to spend at least two years in prison for a crime of which he was innocent. He never got to return home, at least not alive.
Sit in that for a minute. A talented young dreamer is betrayed by his own kin, loses his freedom, and gets stuck in a foreign country for the rest of his life. Imagine that.
But that’s only the story from a human point of view. God preserves Joseph and grants him favor wherever he goes. He ends up as the Pharoah’s prime minister. From this perch, he saves his family—and all of future Israel—by providing them food, protection, and land when they come to Egypt themselves many years later because of famine.
He says to his terrified brothers, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones” (Genesis 50:20-21).
Joseph wasn’t bitter. He found the joy. How is that possible? Because Joseph didn’t live for himself. He lived for God.
Who do you live for?
Beautiful, Jeff. Glad to see you are enjoying the ride.
Best of luck to Pixie and all of you!