Fabric.

Lea and I are sorting through Story Cottage during this Spring Break. Trey is at the beach with friends. Lea and I are going from spot to spot in our home and Lea is touching pretty much every item as we think about our upcoming move to Signal Mountain. Beautiful, sunny days have been our backdrop as we have encountered many items and stories from the past 16 years at Story Cottage. It has been intense, beautiful, sobering, gut wrenching and precious all at once. For us, 16 years in one home is our longest stretch. We sat late last night just before one last push into more tending and Lea counted on her fingers that we have moved 6 times in our married life. Steeplechase Apartments in Knoxville to Bramblewood Lane in Knoxville. Then our first house on Abercorn Ln. in Knox and over to Leeward Lane. Away from Knoxville to Blairview Dr. in Dallas and back east to Watkinsville, GA on Southland Dr. And then once again back to 1412 Farrington Dr. in Knoxville which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.

As we sort through a life of living at Story Cottage, long enough for Story Cottage to have her drivers license, we are seeing so many stories. Story Cottage is true to her name. Story God is the reason. Yesterday afternoon under a deep blue sky, Lea sorted through a large bin of fabric remnants. Lea is such a beautiful woman. Her heart is so abundant. Her life full of gifts. Lea has sewn a lot in our married life. Her own maternity clothes, sleeping bags for build-a-bears, window treatments, handkerchiefs, costumes, table runners, pillows, capes and aprons for new daughters. She touched a married life full of fabric yesterday and we talked about it in the sun.

God is a relationship. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. My friends Buddy and Larry say, "A perfectly happy community of 3 Persons whose nature is holiness and way of relating is love." You and I were born out of a perfect community. That is actually really encouraging if you pause to really consider it. I think we need to really consider. I need to really consider it. Relationships are the fabric of God. God didn't start relationships. God IS relationship. And as we take on the character of God from our beginning, relationships are the fabric that is woven moment by moment. Thank God He is the initiator of relationship for us. We didn't make it up. He wove us into it. Living in relationship isn't easy. With God or with me. We are tattered and torn and yet still woven and stitched into beautiful garments of praise. That could be sappy language trying to pull off a post or it could be what's really true....you and I being woven and stitched into beautiful garments of praise.

Move number five for Lea and I took us from Dallas, TX to Watkinsville, GA. From a church of 6000 to a church of 120. From an office overlooking downtown Dallas to an office looking out into rural Georgia. From meeting lifelong friends in Dallas like the Chaneys to meeting our lifelong friends the Kitners in Georgia. This is one of the quiet, relationship fabrics that I want to be known. We met the Kitners at Christ Church. God wove friendship for us. Lea and Ginny met, walked and talked. Glenn helped me put up new kitchen cabinet hardware. Glenn and I met for lunches and talked. We were movie buddies together. PF Chaings buddies together. Our families worshipped together and picked strawberries together. We learned from Ed together. As things got very difficult at our church, we grieved together and processed together. A lot. And then when it became apparent that move number 6 was coming for us, much sooner than we ever expected, we were sad together. As we packed our house, a massive pile of garbage grew at our curb. Really big. There is a picture stamped in my mind of Ginny and Lea sitting on the top of that garbage heap as Ginny served our family, grieving our departure while she cleaned, packed and served.

But the sewing doesn't stop there. Glenn and Ginny's young daughter Megan told her mom and dad and brother Nathan that she was praying that their family would move to Knoxville to be near where we lived. Sweet sentiment from a young heart or.....a female image bearer boldly living out of the fabric of godly relationships as a young woman of God? If you know Megan, you know what it was. She was on mission with her relational God. So she prayed that her family would move to Knoxville and she declared it out loud. And her prayers and friendship have impacted the last 16 years of our life. Four months after her declaration, the Kitners moved to Knoxville!!!!!! The fabric of these relationships is priceless. Beyond measure.

As we prepare for our move to Signal Mountain, this is a story that I knew I wanted to tell. The fabric of friendship with Glenn, Ginny , Natey and Meege has significantly shaped the last 18 years of my life. It is a beautiful garment being woven still.

It is a beautiful garment being woven still. The sewing doesn't stop here.

These next words are really important to me.

There's more.