Dynamite (soul seasons, part 2)

We moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand in June 2013.  As we drove across the border between Laos and Thailand for the last time there was a lot of excitement and anticipation about the year ahead.  Pete and I had decided to take a sabbatical year--a year to rest, listen, be restored, and see what was next.  Neither of us knew what lay ahead and beyond a sabbatical year in Thailand, but we were hopeful and optimistic.  The hardest part of our decision to leave Laos was leaving behind friendships.  The friendships that we made in Laos were some of the closest and dearest friends we have made along the way...

I vividly remember our drive from Laos to Thailand.  The windy road through the mountains, stops along the way to refuel and buy banana chips or pho (a bowl of noodles for lunch), and the song we played more times than I count.  Thanks to Silas' end of the year school performance in Laos, the song Dynamite became our boys' most requested song to listen to.  Can't say I would ever have chosen that song to be our moving theme song, but there it was...the song that seared itself into all of our memories as we made our move from what was known to an unknown future.   We blasted that song as loud as our ears could handle, and "danced" to the beat lifting our hands in the air (just as he sings in the song).  I felt free and light as we drove away from a place that had held so much heaviness and darkness in my life.  (Yes, I know that you cannot leave your problems behind just by moving, but I will admit that in this situation I think I believed I was doing just that.)  We didn't listen to that song much after that drive, but anytime the boys ask to listen to it now I am instantly back on that windy mountain road feeling the lightness in my heart and the excitement of what lay in store for us.