To Stay or Not to Stay

Well it's coming down to the wire, Grady and I are pretty much on the very edge of having to make a final decision about where to live come December. The obvious easiest choice would be to stay where we're at now, accepting the one year contract extension offered to Grady by his company. We could keep this cool apartment, maintain already-existing relationships, and despite ongoing cultural stress (ie. language, small differences that pile up) it would be the least disruptive to our current lifestyle and habits.

But...

Here's the thing, we're going to move back to somewhere in North America next year anyway. The new contract is for one year, so it's not like a permanent decision to live here or there. What I mean is, we're going to have to "uproot" sometime, whether it be this year or next, moving ourselves and our accumulated goods to a new home and starting with new friends, a new job, a new place to live, and a somewhat new culture. We want to make sure that if we choose to stay here it's not just to avoid all of this for the time being. Grady came to Germany on a one year contract in 2002 and has been blessed to be able to extend it every year since, but we're wondering if now is the time to finally accept our North American-bound fate and take the courageous step of venturing into something new.

God has really blessed us by providing so many options for us to consider, it's just the challenge now of choosing which of all the good choices to decide on and follow through with (although sometimes I even find myself wishing that we only had one option and no hard decision to make-!). Of course no choice will be perfect, and we understand that God will bless our decision whichever way we choose.

Any thoughts or advice for us on this matter? Even just some words of encouragement would be helpful in this uncertain time-! Here's to trying to live a life guided by the Father!