Telomeres Ticking, Catapulting Me into a New Song

We are moving our focus from telomeres to a new topic.

Hmm. Speaking of moving, Paul and I are moving! Relocating across country!

Over three weeks ago, I wrote a draft of a post, changing our focus from telomeres to. . . well I’ll tell you next time.   Then with all our moving plans and activities, I had no interest in editing and publishing my article, the beginning of a new series.

We’re really in the thick of life right now, and I thought I should write about what I’m experiencing — the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. I’m overwhelmed but pushing through. (In January, didn’t I resolve to “keep on keeping on”?)

So, this may be my last post while I’m still living here in Arizona, drinking in the broad, sunny sky, enjoying the view of the Bradshaw Mountains out my front window, participating in Water Aerobics three times a week at our community pool in our development, feeling the comfortable warmth and soft breezes of the central highlands, and enjoying my beautiful, sweet home.

“What on earth are you moving for?” you ask. Hmm. Simple. For love.

After years of prayer, investigation, and seeking God’s direction, we decided to put our house on the market and see what would happen. It sold within nine days (May 7). A week later, we placed a bid on another house, and now we are moving.

After years of waiting, waiting, waiting. . . . Praying. Wondering. Suddenly, we’re being shot from a canon. Ha! We walk by faith and not by sight. But now and then we run by faith. And then Isaiah reminds us that those “who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” and suddenly “mount up with wings like eagles” (Isaiah 40:31), so we also can fly by faith. I don’t feel like a soaring eagle. I feel like a hurling canon ball catipulting through space — a 1700 mile trajectory.

We are leaving the mild and inviting climate of Arizona’s central highlands which lures people from all over to live here – and retire here– and we’re leaving it! Insane. Leaving it for love. The sirens of family life call us: our daughters (2) and grandchildren (2) and my sister’s family with eight (yes, 8) little grandchildren, six years old and under!

We are moving, of all places, to Fort Wayne, Indiana. (We did not expect FW!!) We have never lived there, but it is a good central area for us, with one daughter near Chicago and another north of Cincinnati and my sister’s entire family in Indiana.

Selling our lovely home reminds me of my telomeres, those time keeping tips on my DNA, that tick off my life like a metronome on a piano. The time has come for a new song. Tick, tick, tick. The southwestern song concludes. Tap, tap, tap. A new song in a new chapter commences.

I have no breath to sing this song right now.

We close on both houses on June 11, the moving van arrives on the 12th, and we head out in our truck and travel trailer on June 13. We should arrive at our beautiful, “new” home around June 18, hoping to arrive before the moving van arrives. (Thank You, Lord, for moving companies!!)

By the way, we do plan to be back in Arizona for the first quarter of the new year, in order to avoid much of the Midwest winter. Lord willing.

Lord willing. His will is wait, wait, and wait. Waiting is trusting. Waiting is praying. Waiting is “doing the next thing” in front of you that you know to do. Then, on occasions, the Lord’s will moves you to amazing action. With side-swiping speed. Swoosh. Is this the speed of sound?

“Tick, tap, tap” goes my telomeres. That’s the rhythm. Next the melody, harmony, and lyrics.

Isaiah 40:31

Yet those who wait for the Lord
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.

Lord, let it be.