It’s hard to believe that we have been in Oklahoma for one year! I’m finally adjusting to life in the Sooner state. It’s not like I’m the pioneer woman or anything. I live in the city and that’s a good thing! (I wouldn’t know how to grow herbs, ride a horse or cook a tasty potroast for forty-seven cattle ranchers.) I still can’t believe we are home owners. That is truly a dream come true.

There have been a few things to get used to, and I’m doing it. I’m finally adjusting to the wind, which never rests, by growing my hair long enough for a pony tail. I’ve stopped jumping  a foot high every time Fort Sill fires something. We are part of a great homeschool group  – we’re just on the fringe of it, but “fringe” involvement is about all I can handle right now. Mitch has found a piano teacher that he likes. Lauren is about to volunteer at our library for the second time. We are about to complete our first year of homeschooling here, in a state with NO requirements for homeschooling! (Gotta love freedom!) The other kids have made themselves at home in their new rooms. Life has a sweet, harmonic rhythm which I love deeply.

Yes, I still get a little homesick now and then. I miss seeing the natural beauty of the natural state. I miss being an hour and fifteen minutes from my mom. But as I learned from Sarah, Plain and Tall: there’s always something to miss, no matter where you are.

I can’t brag on my church family enough, they are the sweetest people in the state of Oklahoma. They have made me and my whole family feel so welcome. I was nervous about my teenager adjusting to the move, but she loves it. In fact, the people have shown love for each of  the children. I can’t tell you how much that means to this mom! It’s scary pulling up your life and home, leaving everything you know to come to a church full of strangers. And it’s thrilling to watch those strangers become friends.

My first visit to Lawton, Oklahoma, was on February 8, 2013. Imagine how surprised I was to find that I’d left a piece of my heart in a place I had never been! Only God can do that. He prepared us for this place, and this place for us, in a way that only HE can.

He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

Psalm 40:2