This is unpacking week for the Grafes. The trucks have delivered all of our worldly possessions to our new home, and we continue now in the grand adventure of seeing where everything will go. Over the past five months, Braden and the children and I have been living on top of each other in a "winter rental" with just enough of our "stuff" to remind us of home. We have laughed about the things we missed...like our own silverware.  Beach house flatware is far too forgiving. I'm not sure we had a single fork with all of its tines headed in the same direction. 
 
As I consider the past five months in the beach house, I think what surprised me most was not how much I missed certain things from my old house, but how much I missed certain spaces. I'm not talking about rooms, but corners of rooms.  Each space has its own function and rhythm. The space I missed the most?...The blue and white sofa in the yellow living room, with the morning light streaking through the plantation shutters. This was our retreat. This was where we went to get away; where we shared, and prayed and heard God together with our coffee. As I unpack and help Braden decide where things will go in our new home in amidst the boxes and packing paper and general craziness, is it any wonder that the first room we set up was our retreat where we can get away and pray and hear God with our coffee? The furniture may be different this time, the view a little bit nicer, but the function and rhythm of the space is the same. 
 
Do you have a space where you can be alone with the Lord?  Do you make the time to enjoy that space with Him? Time with the Lord - abiding time - doesn't just materialize out of the ether all by itself. We choose to make time for Him. We choose first to include Him into the rhythm of our lives and then we find that, by His grace and through His love, He has become the rhythm of our lives.
 
I look forward to seeing you this Sunday, 
  
Rob