48 hours left...

We are within 48 hours of pulling onto I-90 West and leaving the incredible Missoula valley for the last time as Montana residents. We have been packing and getting ready for the move for the past 3 weeks or so but it really has been over a year since we have known this is what God has planned for us. We are excited about moving "back home" and are eagerly anticipating what God has in store...but man this is hard.

Jessie and I made a bucket list of sorts of things we wanted to do before we moved from Missoula. We had planned on checking off several of the last remaining items these last two weeks but......we all got sick. Lucie got a form of bronchitis, I needed antibiotics to suppress pneumonia like symptoms and Jessie has had a nasty cough.

Needless to say we were not able to do some of the things we had hoped to and it has really been a bummer. I think we had scripted these final two weeks in Montana a certain way and for them to not go at all as planned has been frustrating to say the least. We will never been residents of Montana again. Yeah we hopefully will be able to visit many times in the future but it won't be the same.

However, over the last few days I have reluctantly been sensing something that God has been trying to get through to me. I have been putting these Montana experiences, this Missoula lifestyle, on such a high pedestal that it has really become more important to me than God Himself. I have been more focused on seeing, doing and experiencing Missoula, Montana in these remaining days than I have been on experiencing God. So in a sense I am relieved that it was God's idea that we not hike the Sentinel trail one more time or that I not throw one more fly into the waters of Rock Creek. I know how much joy those things bring me but I also know the infinitely greater joy that comes from knowing God and experiencing Him.