Settling In

After living in my apartment for more than a year, I feel like I am finally settling in. I spent a big part of the day unpacking some boxes and consolidating some other boxes of things I should probably drop off at Goodwill. I also finally hung stuff up on my walls. I think it has taken me so long because in the back of my mind is the thought that I may have move again. I guess that's one of the remnants of being an itinerant United Methodist pastor. In addition, I have moved a lot in the past five years. As I was sorting through my boxes, I began to think about how many times I have moved my stuff. In case you haven't been following my crazy journey, here's a run down:

• In the fall of 2006 when I was still serving my church in Mishawaka, Indiana, the church bought a new parsonage. I was not ready to tell the congregation that I was leaving, so I went through the huge hassle of moving all of my stuff into the new parsonage in Osceola, Indiana.
• During December 2006 I moved all my worldly belongings into a storage unit in Knoxville, Tennessee. The day after Christmas I drove to Knoxville and moved in with my sister Shelly and her family. I lived in her computer room and slept on an air mattress. I didn't have a job at first and wondered what in the heck I was doing.
• In June of 2007 I moved into an apartment in Knoxville. By this time I had secured full-time employment at Habitat for Humanity of Anderson County Tennessee.
• In the summer of 2008 gas prices had skyrocketed and the Great Recession was in full force. I had a half-hour commute to work from Knoxville to Oak Ridge. So, when my lease was up in Knoxville, I moved to Oak Ridge to an apartment that was just a few blocks from the Habitat office. I even walked to work a few times until the unbearable Tennessee summer heat set in.
• In November of 2009, I accepted a new position with TriState Habitat for Humanity in Cincinnati. Because there was a brief time and I wanted to take my time to look for an apartment, I moved in with sister Stacey and her family in West Chester, Ohio.
• After a long and exhaustive search, in April 2010 I moved to my current apartment in Hamilton, Ohio.

So, for me to be in this apartment for this amount of time seems a little weird. It's a good feeling to think that I might settle in to a particular place for a while. I feel blessed to be here. I am in a place that really like. It's close to work, to my family, and there's a lot to do in the area. I'm grateful that God led me to this place at this time. I hope that that one day I might even consider this more than just a place to stay, but my home.
Thanks for being a part of my journey!