The Big Move, in Libby's Words.

I was 19 years old.

The ride up-river on a motor-powered canoe was just long enough to feel like an adventure was waiting for us. Our group of six docked on the shore and gathered our ankle-length skirts to climb up a dirt ladder etched on the side of a hill.  We hiked until we reached our destination. It was just a shack in the middle of a dusty bare-boned village. Inside were beds and on those beds and in those chairs and on that mud-floor were twins. Paired with their siblings, twin boys and girls covered the floor space in the middle of the bare-boned village. I was in Madagascar, off the coast of Africa, and I was devastated. Twins were taboo in this village and I was witness to the cast-offs who had found refuge in this shack. In my mind, it was unthinkable. My heart burst open and I ran outside where I buried my face in my hands kneeling on the ground. I fought hard to keep back the tears but I lost. Refusing to go back inside the small hut, I waited outside… waiting for God-knows what.

My brief encounter in the world of those children will always be with me.

While this experience and more (there are so many) have marked me forever, there is a dulled emotion attached to it now. As a mother of four my energy and time is now spent within the four walls of my own home with four sticky-fingered, ketchup-faced little treasures.

But I share with you the story of the bare-boned village to emphasize that there are things in life that cannot be taken away. Do not mistake the housewife for loosing interest, heart or passion! I have been Mom to my children for four years and I am still restless, though it looks different than when I was in my 20’s and early 30’s. Now I am a restless mom and I wrestle with my four to provide for their most basic of needs: food, water, shelter, and rest. Circumstances and placement in life do not take away a woman’s passion. It places her behind doors and within four walls but there she battles for her own flesh and blood. She raises her children, cooks the food, mops the floor and hangs the laundry. She shops for winter clothes, signs herself up with a gym, enrolls her children in sports, and drives a minivan. She sips luke-warm coffee, cooks meals she swore she’d never cook, and watches more nighttime television than she’ll ever admit to you. And the restlessness she felt in a bare-boned village years ago is what she feels today, only today it’s not a shack, it’s a house. And it’s not orphaned twins, it’s her own babies who still make her cry and bury her face in her hands.

I call her The Restless Woman and she has many faces. She varies in age and experience. She comes blond, brunette, redhead and greying tones. I have sat and cried and dreamed with her. She is your best friend and a friend of a friend. She is your Sunday School teacher, your child’s day-care provider, and your girlfriend from college. She is married and she is single. She is divorced and she is widowed. She works in retails, she drips coffee, and she designs web pages. She lingers over her sleepy children, she loves her pets, she camps under the stars. She is understood and she is misunderstood. She is outspoken, passionate and reckless. She is quiet, humble, and meticulous. She is the little girl who shares best-friend secrets with your child, the awkward preteen who pinches her pennies, and the stretched-out teenager who doesn’t fit into her skin. She is mentored by your mother and she is your neighbor’s daughter. She is your daughter-in-law. She is your daughter. She is you.

And your heart aches a little bit all the time.

You fall on your hands and press your face into the broken-boned feet of the Beloved. You weep because His hesitation to end injustice is unfathomable. So you fight with Him, you question and love Him fiercely. You feed Africa’s orphans and embrace lepers. You wipe poisoned blood, wrap broken bones, sip tea with criminals, and sit with the aging. You cry with children who have used up their tears. You bath the terminally ill and kiss their diseased hands. You do this with deepest part of your being. You are fully alive!

This is your reality today and this is your future dream. This is what you will wake up to in the morning, and this is what your future holds—this you know it in the deepest part of your being. When restlessness is felt, it comes and goes. But when it is in you it is like being in your blood. It may fade and look desperately different with each season, but it never, ever dies. Plans may change. People and circumstances may disappoint. Dreams may alter. Memories never revisited aloud. Babies may come. But A Restless Woman does not collect dust. She simply grows and stretches. She gets uncomfortable then resettles into a new position, she shrinks and she expands. She sighs and she wonders.

And my heart aches a little bit all the time.

Once upon a time there was a little hut with little children inside and the children made me cry. Then I grew up a little bit and had my own hut with my children inside. And they made me cry too. And the depth of longing to see these children thrive under my love knew no limits. And I wanted it for the hut in the village and for the house in the city. And God gave me a chance to do that, in his time, one chapter at a time.

So this is my chapter in my house in the city and I’m thrilled to be here. Just me and kids...all over the world.