Farewell Ambridge

It's hard to say goodbye.  How do you leave behind eight-and-a-half years and move on to something else?  Ambridge, Trinity, Church of the Savior, Pittsburgh, southwest Pennsylvania -- this is where our family grew into its current fullness, where we have known community and loneliness, great joy and deep depression, unity and fragmentation, intimacy and separation, bright beauty and clinging gray.

Of course, we don't leave Ambridge behind, not really.  Our years here, the relationships, my studies, the geography and weather, our experiences as individuals, as a couple, as a family -- all these have and will continue to shape who we are.  And, after all, it is what our kids know as home.  When I say "home," I still have hazy Texas images wafting through my head.  When my kids say "home," they have clear pictures of ragged Merchant Street dressed up in Christmas lights and shining with its own beauty, of the noisy, fun, and frustrating friendships of school, of sledding down our steep driveway and crashing into the fence, of long drives into Pittsburgh and feeling excited to see the skyline and cross the bridges, of various parks and restaurants and streets and kids...and our house here in Ambridge.  Our kids, for now, aren't Texans, they're Li'l Bridgers.

I won't spend the time right now to reflect deeply on our time in Ambridge.  There is too much there, and I'm too tired.  All that this time has meant and will continue to mean will unfold in the years to come.  We've had good closure, but I think it's a mistake simply to turn the page and say this chapter of our life is over.  Our Ambridge years won't fade into a barely remembered past.  They are a part of who we are, and will continue to shape who we become.

One significant theme I must mention:  God's provision.  As bleary-eyed as I am this morning, this much I see clearly.  Our Father has provided for us again and again and again and again.  He has filled in  gaps in our parenting, he has closed crevices in our marriage, he has given money when least expected, he has provided friends, teachers, pastors and counselors, he has comforted and restored us, he has brought us into places of authentic delight and simple joy.  Always what we have needed, he has provided.  Often what we have most desired, he has given.  Many times what we did not know we needed or desired he gave anyway.

About thirty minutes after I post this blog, I will take one last drive down Merchant Street, hang a right at 8th Street, take a left on Ohio River Blvd., and head out of Ambridge.  Texas is the next significant stop, then on to Uganda.  Nothing will turn out quite like we've envisioned it; nothing ever does.  These past eight-and-a-half years certainly didn't.  One thing I know, however, and of two things I am certain:  that God -- Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit -- loves us, and that he will provide.