Ride Like the Wind

Third Monday in Advent

Monday is Faith Journey Narrative day.on the blog.  We left off last Monday at a life turning point for me. Christmas Eve, 2010 and my last service at First UMC, N. Wilkesboro. It had been a great six years, best of our lives, but I was tired. It was time to retire. We were really looking forward to living in Chapel Hill, close to our son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. 

 

I'm going to step back a bit. We had started looking for a house in Chapel Hill two years earlier. Marianne had done most of the looking. We hadn't found anything that we both liked and could afford. We had five things we were looking for: (1) a two car garage, (2) a functioning fireplace, (3) a one floor house, (4) a deck, (5) a room that could function as my study. We had decided that we could go for as few as 3 of the 5, but no fewer. 

 

We drove to Chapel and looked at some houses Marianne had scouted out. The last one we looked at was love at first sight for me. I knew I wanted to be there. If there had been a GPS in heaven (maybe there was) that would pinpoint the precisely perfect location for me, this was it--in Chapel Hill but close to Duke. Marianne had been in the house about two weeks earlier with the realtor. It had all five things we wanted, as well as a few other extras. 

 

Even though I hadn't been inside, I knew this was it. We agreed to call the realtor and make an offer. We called. Someone had beaten us to it. The house had just gone under contract. We were  terribly disappointed. Over the next months we looked at a lot of places. There were several that were okay but none that was perfect. One night Marianne decided to call the realtor to make sure the ideal house indeed did sell. It didn't. the contract had fallen through. We immediately made an offer. It was accepted. We got the loan and bought the house. I felt then and feel now that it was God thing. 

We bought the house in April, 2010. Marianne did a lot of work on it over the next months. She has all sort of skills in sewing and decorating.

We left N. Wilkesboro right after that last, beautiful Christmas Candlelight Communion and made the two hour and fifteen minute journey to Chapel Hill. We were in the rental car, my car bring in a body shop from the accident I had had a week earlier. I put on a 1980's Christopher Cross CD and played on repeat his song "Ride Like the Wind" all the way to Chapel Hill. 

After we arrived we celebrated with a bottle of Dom Perignon Champagne. dThen we watched the Christmas at St. Peter's in Rome, as we have done every since. Christmas day was Saturday. We went to John and Jessica's for a wonderful Christmas feast. Madeline was 6; Jack was 4. We had intended to go to church that the next day, but it snowed mightily in Chapel Hill, seven inches I think. We lit the fire in our fireplace and enjoyed a day inside. 

Since 1979 I had a goal in life of getting back to Chapel Hill. I honestly didn't know whether it would ever happen. 31 years later it did. 

I'll always be thankful to God for doing that God thing and bringing us to our perfect place. This Christmas Eve we will celebrate the 10th anniversary of our move to Chapel Hill. We'll have another bottle of Dom Perignon. We will watch the midnight mass at St. Peter's. We'll go to John and Jessica's fo Christmas dinner. Madeline is 16; Jack, 14. The six of us have a very safe pod together.We don't hug or touch. They are the only people that Marianne and I have indoor contact with. Once again we won't be going to church again, but for an entire4ly different reason.

 

Thanks be to God for the wonderful faith journey we have been blessed with.

Faithfully,

Christian

Faithfully,

Christian