To my sister.

My sister is a much more stable person than I am. She is calm in decision making. Level and steady. She's the person you call when you need to talk a decision through. She'll ask you really good questions and give you really good answers. I don't thank God for her as often as I should.

I marvel at her ability to keep three kids fed, (mostly) clothed, home school, and somehow work several 12 hour overnight nursing shifts. I can barely work teacher's hours and occasionally eat something that didn't come from a drive through or Chipotle.

She's always had superhero like status in my mind. Someone to want to be like. Someone to tell you when you were about to make a mistake so you could go the other direction. She always let me learn from her mistakes.

So this whole home buying thing comes along. We talked it through. As much as she hated the idea that my buying a house meant I would probably stay in DC a while, she agreed that it made a lot of sense.

I remember comparing it to a missionary going off to some faraway place. Is it safe? I'm not really sure. Will it be easy? Most certainly not. Is it good? I think so. God didn't give me the skills and passion to move half way around the world to share the love of Christ. But, looking around, it seems like he did give me the passion and gifts to move across the river.

When we started talking about it that way, it made perfect sense. Maybe not in a worldly sense, but most good things don't make sense that way. It made sense in that heavenly minded way. It made sense in a look back and marvel at God's kindness kind of way.

So my sister started a housewarming party. Well a digital far away using facebook kind of housewarming party. She also didn't tell me about it! So after one exhausting day at work where it seemed like no one had heard any thing I had said all day and there was just a little more toil than fruitful work in my day, I came home to a few cards from dear sweet friends from my childhood. They included gift cards and sweet encouragements and recollections of God's faithfulness.

And now, after a couple weeks of not posting, I can come before you all praising God for his kindness to me in the form of my dearest friend. My sister.