more minnesota

if you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that i tend to use an awful lot of words to say just about anything.  my own dad even told me so recently: "geesh jod, it takes you a long time to get to the point!"  and he's right. i am well aware of my excessive use of the language. in addition, there is a bit of irony wrapped up in all of this extreme verbosity.  once upon a time, when i was a bona fide high school english teacher up in ohio, one of the my favorite comments on students' papers was, "be concise!"  i know a few of them read this blog and are probably itching to slash those very same words across the top of their former teacher's webpage.  oh how they might love to scribble those violent red letters..."be concise jody mcnatt!"  (and let's not even mention the lack of capitalization)!


some of you don't mind that i write of the feelings and emotion behind our daily journey...journeys...journeying. but i know there are a few of you who skim.  some of you who are looking only for the details.  the bottom line. the nitty gritty.  forget all this philosophizing and processing stuff...you just want to know what's going on.  and that's okay.  i really am fine with that, i even had a friend tell me at a party she doesn't read much of what i write, but she really likes my music playlist!  i loved that.  it made me laugh out loud.  so many of you have also been asking how you can pray for us.  and so that is what this blog post is about...the bottom line and the begging of your prayers.  there! i said it.


tomorrow rick flies to minnesota to begin his new position with united healthcare.  tomorrow begins a brand new journey for our family.  for the next several months rick will spend his week in minneapolis and will commute back and forth on the weekends.  oh, i don't even have to tell you, but this is big.  though rick has had major seasons of travel over these many years of child-raising, we are a family which works best when both parents are all hands on deck.  we found ourselves outnumbered after two kids...you can imagine what five feels like.  though i have to say, emily's newly acquired license and vehicle are perfectly timed and an incredible blessing for the entire family...i, the primary bus and taxi driver, am especially grateful.  just today i remarked to my friend, meritt,  how having a daughter who drives has changed my life.  i am not exaggerating one bit on that account. it is huge.  anyway, tomorrow marks a big step...a big change for the seven mcnatts.  we will need plenty of prayer as we navigate these next several months finishing up the school year and selling the  house and planning ahead for a new life up north.  all of it makes me want to crawl under my covers and pretend someone else is in charge. but i can't and i won't...however, i am sure there will be days i will want to.  i know you guys understand.

the mcnatts house hunting

rick leaves tomorrow and then tuesday the kids and i will fly up to the arctic circle...i mean minnesota...and meet him.  we'll spend the week driving a foreign minivan around a foreign minneapolis attempting to navigate our way through some school shopping and house hunting. sound fun?  i have just finished printing off google maps for most of the minneapolis area and charting our course from place to place.  on tuesday it will be just me and the kids making our way around the great north...i'm feeling, at the moment, a bit kindred to jack london, lewis and clark as i think about gloves and hats and four-wheel drive.  mind you, yesterday, i caught sight of some of my children running barefoot in our atlanta backyard -- while rick was cutting the grass.  yes, cutting the grass in february.  tonight's dinner conversation revolved around what kind of coats we all owned.  coats? do we even have coats?  of course emily sees a shopping opportunity in all of this. i had to give her credit for her creativity last week when she  calmly explained to her dad what a terrible financial move this was going to be considering the high cost of winter clothing.  her argument: there is more material needed...therefore it is more expensive to clothe a family of seven in a cold weather climate.  seemed logical to me.  i, too, am all for shopping excursions.


so that's it.  those are some of the things we'd ask you to pray for our family as we navigate these next months.  go ahead and pick any one of those requests and we'd be grateful.  though it is hard wrapping our minds around all of this, we are leaving this week with some sense of adventure...a little bit of excitement.  it is always fun to see something new.  heck, connor is just so pumped up about the plane ride, he doesn't care what happens after that.  and bella came up from the basement earlier this afternoon wearing a bright yellow leotard with gold sparkles and carrying a small box full of her possessions.  she explained this was her "ninne-soda" outfit and she had packed her "stuff." so there's a little energy in the air as we prepare tonight for this week ahead.  i think what is clear to me is that the going isn't all that hard...but it is the leaving.  when we fly away from atlanta on tuesday, we'll be just fine...because next weekend, we'll be back.  but the real leaving in a few months...well, i can't really think about that right now.   this is nothing against minnesota...actually everybody we've met from the area has been fabulous.  and after our quick visit there in december, rick and i both dubbed it a beautiful city...and we think a nice place to live.  did you know they are one of the top ten cleanest cities in america? in addition, minneapolis, despite the cold weather, is the number one bike riding city in the country. and in honor of my shopping-crazed teenager, "the mall of america is the size of 78 football fields -- 9.5 million square feet."  i am pretty sure we'll manage to find some cold weather clothing there!


for those of you who like it,  the bottom line is this: God goes before us.  He goes before us in this busy week and He'll go before us come summer when it is time to truly leave.  i have no doubt He is already weaving things together and orchestrating the ordeal on our behalf.  just this week i heard about two moms who were both attending a valentine's day party in their children's classroom.  one mom was telling the other mom about a family of five she knew moving to minneapolis from atlanta, georgia.  the other mom said, "is this, by any chance, the mcnatt family?"  now that's good stuff!  these two moms both happened to know about us coming and yet didn't know the other gal also had a connection to us.  i keep telling people "we don't know a soul up there"...but maybe we do.  and surely we will.  and to be absolutely concise:  God knows.  and that is enough.

"the Lord your God is going ahead of you. and He will fight for you..."

                                                                                 ~ deuteronomy 1:30