To say that the last few weeks have been busy would be a drastic understatement. Busy doesn’t even start to cover it. Since we left Ireland two months ago, almost every aspect of our lives has been uprooted and altered; we are truly starting over. New jobs, new surroundings, new churches, new cars, new doctors, new dentists, new schools, new activities, new friends. This has been a season of ceaseless “new beginnings”. It’s wonderful and thrilling. It’s confusing and exhausting. It’s a lot to take in.

For starters, the actual moving is overwhelming. The packing and transporting and sorting and unpacking of people and things. So. Many. Things. Some of the Things I don’t even remember because they’ve been packed away since our last move…or the move before that…or any of the eight moves we’ve made in the last nine years. So many Things, in fact, that it’s taken three weeks and four different moving crews to get all of the Things to the same place (by the way, I owe my undying love to these moving crews who lifted and heaved and pulled the Things while I sat  in my kitchen ticking boxes off a list.)

And now that all of the Things are off the truck and reunited together, every room of our house looks like this. It’s like Bed, Bath & Beyond and Toys ‘R Us and Barnes & Noble and UHaul got together, called all their friends, and decided to infest every square inch of the house.  They’re snuggled up together in closets and under windowsills and in the middle of our walkways. The boxes have taken over.

So, the other day, it kind of all hit me. I was scrubbing poop (not my own) out of the shower for not-the-first-time-this-week and I lost it. I yelled at Jon to PLEASE JUST PUT THOSE KIDS TO BED as I stumbled through the towers of boxes toward the kitchen where I was hoping I could locate a box containing some sort of disinfectant for the unfortunate shower. I was tired. I was full of self-pity. I was so OVER IT.

And then I saw this photo sitting in the middle of our mantle, and it made me stop in my tracks:

“Hey, Jon. Where is this photo from?” I shouted down the hall (because there was no way I was going to weave my way back through THAT maze again).

“A box.” (duh)

“No, I mean where were we? When was this photo taken?”

“At that dance. You know, when we were in college.”

And then I actually really lost it.

Here I was–surrounded by moving boxes and feeling sorry for myself–looking at a photo of my 19-year old self dancing with that crazy-cute guy she had a crush on. I didn’t know it then, but I would marry that crazy-cute guy. And we’d start a new life together. And we’d have crazy-cute children together. And we’d travel the world together. This was photographic evidence of our first “new beginning” together.

And this is what I realized in that moment of unexpected brokenness: new is not easy. There is a lot of heartbreak and hard work and abandonment of comfort that comes with a new beginning. Whether it’s starting a new relationship or a new job or a new life in a new place, new is difficult. But in those hard times, there is another realization: we were created for new beginnings.

As I was staring at that photo on our mantle, I was reminded that, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

Christ is constantly, ceaselessly changing us, breaking us, growing us. Without new beginnings, we would quite literally be nothing. When you think about it, life is really just a series of new beginnings. New beginnings are not to be feared or loathed. No, new beginnings are a gift, even if they do come wrapped in trials.

So, with my new-found respect for my new beginning, I am pressing on. On with the unpacking, on with the scheduling, on with the organizing, on with the making of garage sale piles (Seriously. How do we have so many Things?)

On with this new life, because life really is good.