This past week has been a time of year-end reviews. We remember famous people that died. Some people’s stock (financial, fame, influence or otherwise) soared while others’ crashed. We remember the unexpected things that happened, and how most of the predictions were wrong.
It’s humbling to think how easy it is to be wrong; how unexpected variables overturn our predictions. But that is also kind of good, because it makes us rely less on ourselves and more on God, who is the only One who knows the future.
I thought I would do my own review of 2025. Not of national or world events, but of personal things. I took the calendar off the wall to look through it. I wrote down the highlights. Then I shortened the list.
The thing that probably qualified as a theme for the year was the move to from Oklahoma to Oregon. Who could have known we would be relocating to the Northwest? We’d been to Oregon before, but never considered moving here. It was nice enough, but there was just not a reason to consider it.
This move entailed three trips. The first one was an exploratory trip to look at housing. This was in February. We flew in and were picked up at the airport by our son-in-law, who was already living here because of his new job. Our visit coincided with a freak snow/ice storm, which complicated things, especially when we planned to look at houses. We met the realtor at the first house, amidst the snow. Then on the way to the next one our realtor’s car went off into a ditch. We (me and my son-in-law) tried to get her car out, pushing while she was giving the engine gas. But the wheels just spun against the ice. She had to wait for a tow-truck. Two days later the weather was better and we saw two other houses, but none that suited us. But we did get a general idea about some of the suburbs of Portland.
In March, Alice’s mother, Margaret Sanchez, passed away in Plainview, Texas. She was a faithful Christian. Three of our four kids were able to attend the funeral with us.
The second trip to Oregon was in May. For us, this was kind of a ‘pre-move’ to get my pickup and boat there to put in storage. We didn’t have a house secured yet, but would do more looking while there. A midway stop on the way was at our son’s house in Henderson, Nevada. We spent an extra day and took the boat to nearby Lake Mead and saw Hoover Dam from the water. After leaving Henderson, we would go north through Nevada’s barren wastelands (that’s the way I thought of it). Gas stations are few. The nearest one was in Tonopah. I did my calculations. We should make it, starting with a full tank plus four gallons I had in gas cans in the back of the pickup. Unfortunately, there was a headwind which reduced the mileage more than what I planned for. I pulled over, put in the gas from the gas cans. The ‘miles to empty’ indicator on the dashboard went down faster than I wanted. Then it hit zero while we still had some miles to go. We prayed, and made it. It felt a little like the Bible story of the widow of Zerephath, where her jar miraculously continued to have oil when it should have been empty (1 Kings 17). I can’t remember having an experience like that before. After reaching Oregon we left the truck and boat in storage. We saw a few more houses with the realtor, and were quite interested in one. We made an offer on it, which was accepted, and began the process.
A few weeks later, in June, we made the third and ‘official’ moving trip, this time driving in Alice’s Toyota Rav4. Our household goods were shipped separately in a pod. We had our grandson with us. Gas mileage was not a problem on this trip; there would be no drama. On the way, we arranged to go up to Idaho and stop by Boise, where an old friend of mine had moved. I got to see him, the first time in years. I was also curious to see Boise; I was expecting it to be a kind of paradise (everyone seemed to speak highly of it) but it did not live up to expectations. Nothing wrong with it, there was just nothing in my opinion that was special. Sometimes we idealize things and then reality brings them down to earth. Upon arrival in Oregon, we moved in with our daughter and family as we were still under contract from that house we liked from the previous trip. We knew that house had some problems and an inspection revealed even more problems. We ask the seller to cover the cost of repairs, but he only wanted to cover about 25% the amount. At that point we backed out of the deal.
But the next day our realtor alerted us to another house that had just come on the market. It had a high ceiling in the main room, which was something we wanted (it gives an airy, visionary feel). After a month of realtor/mortgage processing, we closed on it. Fixing it up the house and yard, even though it wasn’t a fixer-upper, took up a lot of my attention.
We found a church, one in the middle of town that meets in the city’s arts center. Going to church reminds me that I miss being a pastor. I’d rather be the one preaching rather than listening to someone else preach. But this my discipline for now; it is God’s lot in life for me at this time. The most important thing is that we can bring the grandkids to church with us.
Looking back, the main insight from 2025 was a redefinition of the concept of ‘home’. Home is not so much a place as it is relationships. ‘Place’ can seem important–I grew up my whole childhood in one house, and that’s the way I liked it. But in my adult years, mainly because of ministry, we’ve moved quite a bit, and there is no physical location that really feels like our forever, future home. Maybe that will change, we don’t know yet.
There is a sense that home is where family is. We moved to be close to grandkids, to be a part of their lives. Thankfully, we were able to do this; there was nothing tying us down. This idea of home as where family is weighs more heavily than location, weather or amenities.
But at an even a deeper level, home is where God is, which is everywhere. If you have God, you have a home in the deepest sense. Moses wrote in Psalm 90:1-2, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Moses, who knew something about moving around from one place to another, calls God “our dwelling place.”