From Zero to Sixty

Dear Fellow Pilgrim,

Not long after writing my last post, life did something it has done many times before. It went from stillness to motion. One friend laughed and said, “You always go from zero to sixty.” She is not wrong. I have often lived that way. Full stop to full speed. Silence to song. Nothing to everything. But this time felt different. Perhaps because I was not running alone. My husband was beside me. My children were beside me. And somehow, without either of us planning it, we found ourselves standing before an open road.

Friends, we are moving. Not to a new neighborhood. Not to another city. Not even to another state. We are moving to Honduras, the country where I was born. Even now, writing those words feels strange. For years, the possibility sat quietly in the corner of our conversations. It would appear now and then, only to disappear again beneath practical concerns and ordinary responsibilities. It was always a possibility, but never quite a plan. Until suddenly it was.

The strange thing is not that we chose it. The strange thing is how quickly everything unfolded once we did. After my last post, something began to unravel in me, and in my husband as well. The dreams we had been chasing for years suddenly looked different. Some no longer seemed attainable. Others no longer seemed desirable. What we thought we wanted began to lose its grip on us. And in that unexpected clearing, an old question returned. What if we went to Honduras? Not forever. Just for a season. A season to breathe. A season to heal. A season to strengthen what had become strained. A season to be closer to family. A season to build. A season to listen.

So we did what sensible people do when faced with a life-altering decision. We prayed. We talked. We researched. We counted. We made lists. We weighed advantages and disadvantages. We ran the numbers. We asked difficult questions. And the more we looked, the more one thing became impossible to ignore: the path kept opening. One door opened and then another. One concern found an answer and then another. One obstacle moved aside and then another. Not perfectly. Not miraculously. Not without effort. Simply enough to keep walking.

I wish I could say everyone rejoiced with us. But often news of departure carries sorrow before it carries joy. There were tears. There were difficult conversations. There were people we love who wished the answer had been different. And yet beneath all of it was something I struggle to describe. Peace. Not excitement alone. Not certainty about every outcome. Not the absence of fear. Just peace. The kind that remains after the fears have spoken. The kind that remains after all the calculations have been made. The kind that remains when you can no longer explain why your heart is resting.

Perhaps what surprised me most was watching my husband. I have never seen him quite this way. So certain. So steady. So willing to take ownership of the decision. He began planning, calculating, researching, dreaming, hoping. Not wishful thinking. Not fantasy. Hope. Real hope. The kind that rolls up its sleeves and gets to work. Again and again, I found myself bringing worries to him. And again and again, he would quietly lead us forward. In marriage, there are moments when you become deeply aware of the gift standing beside you. This has been one of those moments for me.

Of course I still have fears. I would question myself if I did not. I wonder about what we are leaving behind. I wonder about what awaits us. I wonder about the things we cannot possibly know yet. But none of those fears have become larger than the peace. That, more than anything else, is what has stayed with me.

As Christians, we speak often of pilgrimage. Not because every Christian is called to cross oceans, but because every Christian is called to move. To leave one thing and follow Christ into another. To trust Him one step farther than feels comfortable. To discover that stability is not found in geography, but in communion with Him. Abraham left. The Apostles left. The saints left. Again and again, Scripture tells the story of people who heard God say, “Go.” Not because movement itself is holy, but because obedience is.

Perhaps that is why this decision does not feel like an escape. It feels more like an invitation. An invitation to trust. An invitation to loosen our grip. An invitation to discover whether God is just as present in unfamiliar places as He is in familiar ones. Of course He is. He always has been.

And so we are going.

Soon I will begin a new corner of this little blog called The Honduras Journal. There I will share the places we discover, the people we meet, the ordinary beauties we stumble upon, and the mercies that wait for us on unfamiliar roads. I hope you will come with us. Not because our story is remarkable, but because every Christian is a pilgrim, and every pilgrim eventually reaches a crossroads where staying and going both require faith.

Perhaps my friend was right. Perhaps it looked like we went from zero to sixty. But I wonder if that is only how grace appears from the outside. Perhaps the Lord had been teaching us to loosen our grip long before we noticed our hands opening. Perhaps He had been preparing us through unfinished porches and difficult conversations, through tight budgets and quiet disappointments, through prayers we thought had gone unanswered and dreams that slowly changed shape. Perhaps the acceleration was only an illusion. Perhaps the engine had been warming all along. Perhaps every ordinary day, every hidden sorrow, every small act of repentance was another mile leading us here. When the moment finally arrived, we did not suddenly become different people. We simply found ourselves ready to say yes. And maybe that is how God often works. Not by hurrying us into His will, but by patiently making us into the kind of people who can recognize it.

So if today your life feels still, if nothing seems to be happening, if every prayer feels buried beneath ordinary days, do not despise the quiet. The roots are growing where no one can see. And when the road finally opens, it may look like zero to sixty. But heaven will know it was one faithful step after another.