Les & Diana Morris

Les & Di in Costa Rica October 2010

Days away from the actual move to Costa Rica, a new year starts and an old one ends.  School starts too, January 5 at Instituto de Lengua Espanol – our new home 4 hours a day, 5 days a week.   Everyone keeps asking us if we are excited.  The answer is a resounding “yes!”  But as excited as we are, 2010 has been a year of letting go of many things too – people, family, friends, pets, memories and good old fashioned “stuff.”  As Christians, we often work hard to make sure that our possessions don’t possess us.  We keep our hearts and eyes fixed and focused on God.  Yet if truth be told, many of our “things” hold a great deal of meaning for us.  Some items we worked hard for and waited long for, with great anticipation.  Some of them we acquired easily and you would think they’d have little power over us; yet they seem to stir up our emotions. In spite of how we acquired our “stuff,” regardless of whether these “things” have any true value or intrinsic value only,  they all are associated with memories and relationships. They remind us of our history and the stories in our lives.  So for us, the end of 2010 has been a season of letting go.  Some items have been packed carefully away and are neatly sorted and labeled waiting for our return, when a more final decision can be made as to their ultimate disposition. Still, we’ve been fairly ruthless in our sorting.  We’ve given away a number of things and have thrown away bag load after bag load.  We’ve even needed friends to help us view these things with an objective eye.  So as we sit here tonight, a neat row of suitcases, carefully packed and weighed, gaze back at us, holding what we will live with for the next year.  After 37 years of marriage, these suitcases don’t look like all that much, but for better or worse, they are what’s coming with us;  the decisions have been made.

Tomorrow, Twinkey and Red Cat (our Maine Coon cats) go to their new family (at least for now), and our Chocolate Lab, Lindy, waits to move in downstairs with Jon and Eri. She will miss her cat friends, for they are all good buddies.  There is much emotion associated with their leaving, and although they are much more important than our “stuff,” this parting for us is a piece of letting go. So we turn the page in our story. One chapter ends and another begins.

Costa Rica Pacific Ocean Sunset

2011 is an unknown for everyone, not just for the Morris family.  For us, this next chapter will take place in an as yet unknown context; one without snow, one with two seasons instead of four. We have a new language, a new culture to learn and a new people to embrace.  We know there are friends waiting for us in Costa Rica that God has already started to knit our hearts to, and we are thankful.  God is good and we are reminded that for us to receive the “everything new” promised in Revelation 21:5, the old must first pass away – and we are the ones who have to choose to let it go.  In order for us to enjoy His mercies that are new every morning, as we are told in Lamentations 3:21, we must recognize our great need of that mercy.  Of course, in turn, we get to be embraced by His great faithfulness.  Life is full of these contrasts, by His design.  He has always been a God of “if-then’s.”

All our bags are packed, we're ready to go

So, along with everyone else, we close the chapter of 2010 and eagerly anticipate 2011 and all that God holds in store for us. While these pages are not yet known to us, He is known to us.  His mercies ARE new every morning.  His plans for us ARE good. He DOES make everything new and GREAT is HIS faithfulness. Our hearts trust safely in Him.

(P.S. If this looks like a lot of suit cases to you, just remember that textbooks, electronics, comforter, bedding, towels and pillows are all packed too!  LOL)