the new blog

We've moved! In both the physical world and the blogging world :)

After getting married and beginning a new season of life, we decided to create The Harwerth Blog. And so, you'll find this blog continued over at: theharwerths.com where the rat tails tales, life lessons in Haiti, photos, and stories will continue on.

You can email subscribe to the new blog (just look to the right side bar, underneath the photo) so you never miss a post. And you can still leave comments. Same blog, just with a new last name. And a partner in crime :)

See you there!
Anna

An Update

Nebraska’s skies are bright and blue, with cotton-like clouds scattered across a vast stretch of emptiness. There’s a peaceful stillness to the air here. Throughout the day, a mama bird flutters to and from her nest buried behind the gutters of our garage. The wind gives the curtains a gentle, steady rustle. And every so often, the sound of car driving by drifts through the ever-open window.

East First Street has been home for 3 weeks now. The gray-blue house with white windows and doors is slowly becoming ‘our place’. There are seeds planted along the front porch garden box, tomato plants growing in the backyard, and an herb garden on the kitchen window. We’ve baked cookies, forgotten house keys, washed the sheets, and broken a glass or two in our efforts to turn a house into a home.

Life is good. It is an extreme sort of different for this born-and-raised city girl, and I am reminded of that difference every time the northern wind brings the smell of the feed yard into my house, or the woman at the grocery store knows my name, or I can literally get anywhere in less than 5 minutes. But it is good. 

We are adjusting to life as we learn this unfamiliar dance called marriage. There are days we find ourselves lost in the bliss of doing life together, something so simple yet so beautiful. Other days we find ourselves overwhelmed by a future riddled with countless unknowns, desperate for time and answers we don’t quite have. Some days we stand bold and confident, excited to embark on the adventure He has laid out before us. And at other times, we falter and we fear and we shake, questioning just how exactly this is going to work. 

We find ourselves riding a roller coaster of emotions—excited, terrified, confident, unsure, homesick, wonder-filled, frustrated, joyful. Life comes in waves. But it is good, always so good. And God proves Himself faithful again and again, in both the little and the big ways. And we find Him bigger and stronger and mightier than our fickle hearts.

There are lots of plans happening and many changes in the works (one of which includes a new blog). So don’t stray too far, because we are excited to share this journey and all that God is up to.

Words to a Small Boy

Dear Michael-

Not a day has gone by where I haven't imagined your brown eyes and that infectious smile. I have thought of you every day since I last saw you-- snoozing away in your new homemade pac'n'play in your home in Limbe. 

Long after you've gone, you still have this way of changing me.

I miss the sound of your laughter. The memory of our sensory play afternoons is never more than a breath away. The zip-up footie pajamas I walk past in Target never fail to make me pause, remembering you. You are a fond memory- one that pierces to the heart of me. 

One year ago, I watched you stand. 

Today I find myself miles from you. Yet I spend my days loving on another precious boy who reminds me every bit of you and the things I dream for you. So many dreams in one single day-- the dream to watch you blossom and grow, the dream to see you walk, the dream for you eat more than rice and spaghetti and oatmeal, the dream to see you thrive. 

In me you ignited a spark that lit so many hopes and dreams. In me you planted a fearless hope, to believe our God still does the impossible. In me you created this passion that floods my mind at night and consumes more and more pieces of me. 

You have given me a most precious gift. 

I'm finding the will of God it be a most puzzling place these days. I often feel like I am Abraham on Mount Moriah. But I am learning to trust in these heartbreaking and puzzling plans our God unfolds. For He is good. 

My arms ache to feel the weight of you in them, to kiss your cheeks and trace the lines in your face and whisper the ways you are so precious to the One who made you.

Until then,

All my love,

Anna

Unending Change

January comes with snowy mornings and pale sunshine. Its gray skies and ice cold days leaving the fireflies and grass-y smell of summer a memory. The new year has been laced with memories of, “Remember a year ago…” 

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different?” 

Amidst the wedding planning and the nannying days, the way those words resound in my heart is taken to whole new meaning. So much has changed in such short time. Hard maybe, but never bad. Exciting, yes, alongside challenging and stretching. I don't know that one can transition from one season to the next without using the word, “Bittersweet.” 

New cannot come without the old dying. Anticipation of tomorrow does not stand without some sort of goodbye to today. Every possible dream for the future is weaved with excitement, but threaded through the past is a sadness of sorts for something that is ending. 

Change is good. But change is hard. 

I have these conflicting desires. On one hand rests a desire for everything to always be new and different and exciting, for things to constantly be changing. On the other hand, I find myself with a want for the comfort of stability, the constant that comes with routine, the certainty that one can have when things stay the same. 

January turned the corner and I suddenly saw 2016 as the year of changes. Finishing my nannying job, a day-to-day living of life with a family which feels too intimate to be called a job. Marrying the man whose name makes me smile, whose gentle kindness melts me, and who gives the best hugs. Moving across states from the city to a small town, taking his last name and being known as his wife. Leaving the only home he’s known, boxing our few belongings, and leaving the States behind to fly to Haiti.

Every time the leaves change on the treetops, so will our lives. The thought is a bit daunting.

I think the fear is normal, maybe even necessary. Change and fear have this beautiful way of reminding me where I should put my hope. The seasons always change. Our lives cannot remain exactly as they are today. There is a time for everything under the sun, as the author of Ecclesiastes wrote. 

In the year of change and inconsistency and newness comes this whispering, “Embrace..” 

Embrace this, child. Embrace every single change through every single season. Because you know the One who does not change.