by Kat Silverglate ©2024

“I love moving,” said no right-minded person ever!

Moving is inconvenient. Whether short or long, temporary or permanent, to a better circumstance or away from a harsh one, moving inevitably involves a great deal of discomfort. Packing up a life. Examining your stuff to decide what to keep and what to ditch. Or avoiding sifting altogether by simply tossing your possessions indiscriminately in boxes. Giving cherished things away to downsize. Finding affordable furniture to upsize. Anticipating how things will fit in the new space. Forwarding mail. Changing addresses. Turning utilities off/on. Leaving gaping holes where pictures once hung. Finding memories in the remnants as you clean. Locking the door for the last time. Saying farewell to the familiar. The history. The friends. Wondering how you will adapt to new neighbors, new circumstances, a new normal. Living out of boxes for a season. Unpacking while trying to do life, work, study, raise kids, whatever… it can be brutal.  

Yet, as challenging as moving is, the act implies a modicum of choice. A morsel of control. Being moved, however; involuntarily, by circumstances or by the actions of others, can imply a mountain of pain. Being moved leaves a different kind of mark. One that generally can’t be sorted in the whirlwind of the foisted-upon-you shift. One that might be suppressed until circumstances bring the wound so close to the heart that it demands attention. To be felt. Acknowledged. Sorted. Processed. Understood. 

Aldos Vance is a fifty-something, six-foot, three-inch, African American lawyer from Alabama. He’s a gentle giant that exudes peace and calm. Speaks softly. Radiates confidence and joy. Is kind and generous and smart and Al has a superpower. One that being moved helped to shape, or form, or come to the surface. One that ultimately pointed an arrow to his calling and purpose.   

“My grandmother killed my aunt when I was four. Shot her in front of my three cousins. She didn’t go to jail. It wasn’t malice. It was mental illness. They moved her to a facility for treatment. When her daughter, my mother, started to show signs of mental illness, my life started to move around in ways I couldn’t control and didn’t understand.” 

Born in Brooklyn, the youngest of three kids, Al remembers his first four years of life with fondness. He was too young to understand shifts in his mother’s behavior, but eventually his parents split. Al and his sibs moved with his mother from a house to a two-room apartment. Not a two bedroom. Four people shared a two-room unit with a communal bathroom that served four apartments.

He was moved and it was confusing. 

“I never understood why my parents were no longer together. Why did we live in separate apartments? Why did we leave a loving environment of both parents and start anew? Why was Mom so sad? Why did my mother’s personality begin to change?” 

As stressful as the change was, Al began to cope by diffusing tension. By attempting to distract himself and others from the heat of conflict to something else.

“Perhaps because I was the youngest, I could get away with it? I don’t know, but I was always looking for ways to bring down the temperature.” 

The family moved to Alabama when Al was seven. By fifth grade and through several moves, his mother’s condition worsened. The courts were now involved. He was taken by law enforcement from his mom to the Salvation Army. His aunt and uncle stepped up and took all three kids into their home while custody was addressed. Again, he was moved. This time for three plus years to a three-bedroom, one bath house which six people shared. 

“My aunt and uncle had a stable home. They had faith. They were hard working. The house was calm. I’m so grateful for them but being away from my parents was hard and confusing. I was living with someone else’s mother and father and I was always trying to figure out, ‘where do I fit.’ I coped by keeping the peace. Not making waves. Deflecting conflict.” 

Finally, in ninth grade, the custody battle came to a head. As he and his siblings made their way to the hallway outside the court room where the judge would rule on custody, they were faced with two benches. His mother sat on one. His father and his wife sat on the other. He didn’t know where to move. He didn’t want to show favor. To create conflict. They were both his parents. He loved them. Finally, his aunt moved him, first to his mom and then to his dad and then to a jury room where he and his sibs awaited their fate. 

When the judge came in, he made it clear to Al that he wasn’t going to make a final decision until Al moved his lips. Until he spoke audibly his choice – Mom or Dad? 

He knew the endless moving would stop if he went with Dad. He knew Dad could afford to take care of them. He knew it would be more predictable and stable. Again, he was moved. To live with his father’s blended family and his father’s parents.  Throughout high school, when his mother struggled, Al was the point of contact. He coped by trying to smooth things out. By trying to find solutions. By making peace.

And he got good at it.  Really good.

He went on to college. Worked for the Alabama Department of Transportation. Met his now Doctor wife, Tish. Went on to law school. Got a great job with a defense firm. Fell in love with mediation and became a certified mediator. A professional peacemaker. Only, he didn’t have enough experience in the law to be sought after in that capacity. Not yet anyway. So, he kept working as a litigator. Had two beautiful children. Went in-house with a great company.

And then COVID hit.  

“I had long since buried all that painful history. I didn’t understand why the grip of mental illness so tightly constricted my life. That shut down impeded my spiritual journey and cut off my connection to the source of everything God intended me to become and achieve. During COVID we started streaming messages from Faith Chapel. I started to consistently read the bible and spend intentional quiet time with God. I wrote down memory verses that moved me and I started to sort and heal. And my corrected course was revealed. I was not only being moved to spend time with God each day, but I was also choosing to move into position to be with Him and grow.” 

Slowly the Lord began to reveal to Al that he was a peacemaker. Not simply because the Scriptures proclaim “Blessed are the peacemakers,” but because his whole life had given him the skill of a peacemaker and the love of peacemaking. Of conflict resolution. Of unifying speech and action. He had been in training since he was four. And he had a heart for reconciliation after all the divisions he’d experienced.

Finally, he heard a message that moved him to make a major shift. The pastor asked the congregation to imagine hiring a contractor to paint your house. You leave town while the painting is being done, and you return home to find that the contractor has painted your neighbor’s house instead. The contractor did a fantastic job. But you have no intention of paying him because he painted the wrong house. The pastor went on to say something like this:

“many of you are doing an excellent job at something. You are skilled and your work is good. But you are painting the wrong house. You can be doing a good job and not be where you are called. Are you painting the right house?” 

Concept from sermon that moved Al to action, preacher unknown

In that moment, Al knew. He was going to turn all his attention to being a peacemaker, in life and in the law. His mediation practice is now his full-time mission field. Peacemaking is his superpower. He is wholly devoted to embracing his unique design, shaped by life’s trials, and to fulfilling what he believes are his God-given assignments.

“I don’t understand why all these things happened in my life. But I know this. God is using it for the good. He has molded me in these trials, and He has guided me to the path I’m on and led me to the season I’m in. I’m so grateful.” 

God's Movement

The Scriptures compare God’s movement with the wind:

God is always moving. Always. In us. Around us. Through circumstances and others. Where He intends.

When Al decided to slow down and seek the Lord on his hurts and his path and his questions, he made a choice to move with the Spirit of the living God. To respond to His direction and leading. And healing began.

Our August Responsiveness Mission:

In your mission pack (if you are receiving them in mail) you have three types of stickers.  

1. Ready to Ship 
2. Return to Stock 
3. We’re Moving

Ready to Ship: So often we say we are ready to fly but we never take off. Ready to be sent but afraid to go. Or living in a constant state of getting ready. Maybe you are painting the wrong house and doing a really great job at it, but you know it is the wrong house? Consider using this sticker to meditate on areas of your life where you proclaim readiness but don’t move. Prayerfully seek to identify the obstacle.

Returned to Stock: Have you waited for so long to move that you feel out of circulation? You’ve returned yourself to a shelf? Use that Return to Stock sticker to mediate on the reasons why. Consider beginning with some memory verses like Al did. Here’s one of his verses from his hand written cards. The steps of a man are established by the LORD when he delights in his way… Psalm 37:23. What if you shifted your focus to delight in the Lord and His ways?

We’ve Moved: We are made to move with the Lord. We are made to love moving. Consider putting the We’ve Moved stickers in places you can notice them all month long. Because you too have a superpower! You have the ability to respond to the Lord. You are made to love moving... with Him!

Let’s move!

Amen? Amen!