“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” – Jesus, John 16:33

Mr. Max is more than a little anxious about this move. We take him over to the new house as much as we can, but I sense an uneasiness in him that probably won’t settle until after we get everything situated and hand in the keys to our rental.

He is shadowing us at every turn. All the photographs with the dog popping up are not set up that way, he just follows us around and will not let us out of his sight.

We bought him a new bed just for the Saint Patrick street house, but he would rather sit right by one of us, or hard against the front door if Rebekah or I leave for even a while.

Friday’s big project was me assembling two closet systems to help keep us organized. Having put together the bed yesterday I thought I would be more efficient today. But it was a different company, featuring a new strategy carefully calibrated to confuse customers. I spent most of the afternoon squinting at teeny little drawings that did not remotely resemble any of the items I had in front of me.

The end result, however, is most excellent.

We have also purchased several new rugs and the big challenge now is to get a couple of them to “lay down.” The one in the living room was folded rather than rolled and the creases look tighter than a pressed collar on one of my dress shirts.

Our solution, for this time of transition at least, is to stash all the heavy book boxes on the folds and the edges. Time will tell.

A good read:

The last part of today’s post is to remind you to read – if you have the book – pages 72-73 of Reaching Toward Easter. The chapter is titled, “Washed in the Water,” and we found that what I wrote more than a decade ago remains a great encouragement today.

“In this world you will have trouble, “ Jesus says. “But take heart (take courage), I have overcome the world.”

Take heart! – DEREK

( I photographed the pages for you if you don’t have it. Just click on each image and they should enlarge)