This morning I’m tired. Very tired.

It’s a long story, and one day I’ll share the whole thing. Let’s just say it started in England, early one morning in 1974, when my dad dropped a tray of hot tea on the stairs (I think it was 1974), and then the story worked its way forward to this Sunday evening, when I hopped on a plane for Florida to meet a Mayflower truck at my parents’ home and help them move to Wake Forest.

When my dad dropped that tray it woke up my brother. Long story short the whole tea-dropping incident is – essentially –  why my niece, Hannah, came to be born in 1978. You can see Hannah sitting on the chair with my mum and dad her four beautiful children – my brother’s grandchildren.

GRIEF: So I helped pack up my parents and yesterday afternoon, after 33-years, they left Sarasota. And it was exceptionally difficult for my niece to say good-bye because it was just two years ago today, March 12, that her dad – my brother, Geoff – died peacefully after a long struggle with cancer.

As I hugged Geoff’s grandchildren, I swear I could sense the infectious “we can pull this off!” of my brother’s irrepressible adventurous spirit, encouraging mum and dad as they packed 1991 through 2014 into box after box after box, and set their sights on Wake Forest.

ABRAHAM! Tuesday afternoon, sitting on a piece of carpet in the corner of an empty house, I thought about the ways God calls us – is always calling us. How God called me into being in 1956, called me to himself from Day One, called me to the U.S.A in 1975, called me into marriage with Rebekah in 1979, and called us into this Wake Forest adventure in 2013; how God called my brother home in 2012; how God is calling my parents into this new life today.

I thought about how God called Abraham when he was already well advanced in years, and how God had amazing plans for his family regardless.

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

I don’t care how old you are, or how young, God is calling you into something special. At the very least God is calling you into The Greatest Story Ever Told.

GOODBYE-HELLO: So I stuck a “Do Not Load” label on my head and watched three decades of my mum and dad’s life roll through the door and onto the truck. And I thought about how loaded with life and possibility this exhausting move is, and about how glorious it is to be living into purpose, and promise, and the constant mercies of God’s good grace.

– DEREK