Happy 4th of July!

Best wishes to you all on this 4th of July, 2008! I am writing to you on the chilliest 4th I've ever experienced in my life! Right now it's a breezy 59 degrees, with the high today only in the low 70's. Much different from the very hot 4ths I've enjoyed most of my life. I have enjoyed a relaxing morning so far, and I will be leaving in a few hours to head down to Boston for a fantastic celebration. I am SOOO excited! I'll be sure and post an entry with pictures sometime tomorrow or Sunday so you can share in the adventures. And my dad and brother have decided to leave tonight to drive up, so they should be arriving around dinnertime tomorrow evening. Pray for safe travels for them.

For now, I thought it would be good to look back over the past year. My last blog gave you reminders of our first day of travels as we drove up here. On the second day, we drove and drove and drove and drove. It was an extremely long day, and this picture of Ellie speaks to how we all felt by the time we arrived in Connecticut that night.

On July 4th of 2007, we rolled into Boston early afternoon, having no idea what sort of life lay ahead. When we got here, we stopped first at the hotel where my parents and Matthew were going to stay while they visited to drop Ellie off and give her a break from the car. Then we drove over to our new apartment to show it to everyone because up to that point, only Michael and I had ever seen it. When we got here, the girl who had lived in it before us hadn't followed instructions and had locked us out. We tried to break in but had to end up calling a locksmith instead. Ahh, memories!

After spending a day unpacking and organizing our apartment, we did a bunch of sightseeing as a family in Boston and in the surrounding area. It was a really fun time to share together, and we made lots of good memories. Then it was time for the GA portion of our family to head home. I'll never forget dropping the parents and brother off at the airport and the realization hitting me that I was going to be in a strange new place without them. It was a very emotional goodbye, but beneath that was the certainty that I was exactly where I needed to be.

And now here we are a year later, and this has become my home in a way that I would have never imagined. The people I have met and shared life with, the things I have gotten to experience....all of this has served in the healing process and in the living process, and it's awesome to me how in such a short time I now can't imagine my life without these people as a part of it.

God has been faithful to heal my broken heart. He is still molding me into His image and the healing process continues in different ways, but over the last year, He has taken my mourning and turned it into joy. He has taken my burden upon Himself and given me wings to fly. He has shown me a side of His character I never knew before, and He has renewed my spirit and brought my heart back to life.

I have always loved the 4th of July because it's a holiday where we celebrate the fact that we are free. As incredible as it is to have the freedom we have in our country - and as much as we take it for granted - it is nothing compared to the freedom we have in Christ. I have experienced that freedom in Him in a new way this past year in Boston, and I can honestly say that I am thankful for all that I have walked through over the last year-and-a-half.

I read something the other day that was talking about the difference between dreaming and hope. All of us can dream - it's easy to dream because we can dream on our own and don't need God to do it. With hope, it requires a courageous dependence on God. As humans, we tend to live in fear. It's easy to do so because if we live in fear, we are in control. Having true hope means relinquishing that control and having complete dependence on God because we cannot hope without Him. On this 4th of July and in the upcoming year, I challenge all of us to live with hope - to be willing to let go of our fears, the what-ifs, the things that drive us, and rest in hope and just see what God has in store. He will always be enough. And even when we can't understand and we can't see it, His plans for our lives really are for our good and out of His love for us. My life is living proof.

Happy 4th of July! I love you all!
~Tiffany (and Ellie!)