We Are Still Here…And He Is Still Good

What do you do?
When God gives you a vision…
So you make terrifying and bold moves…
Then nothing happens?

Sunday, July 23 I broke down and took a pregnancy test. In the Target bathroom. While my family was in the car thinking I was getting granola bars…
I was late. Knew I couldn’t be pregnant, as we had definitely not been trying. But needed to rule that out because well, something was up and I knew it. Big fat POSITIVE sign appeared on test. What?! The lady in the stall next to me probably thought I was a complete NUT. I don’t even know the sounds I made… probably a gasp, then a giggle, then a sob, then a whisper “get it together…”

Monday, July 24 I broke the news to Michael! In the sweetest way…and we have it on video. But that’s a whole other story and blog for that matter
We became overjoyed after the shock wore off a bit.

Friday, July 28 Michael said “God has given me this vision. I know it. I’m going to put our house on the market.”

Woah. Wait. What house? You mean our dream house on the ridge? Our forever home? The one that’s a walk through the woods from my brothers house? The one we moved in to stay? That one?

Yes. It was that one.

You see, God gave Michael a vision. He didn’t give him the whole story. He didn’t give him the end result. But he gave him a glimpse. A vision of us giving up everything we had. All of the “material things”, all of the debt that controlled us, all of the dreams that were our own, all of our ideas, all of the securities, everything. THEN grabbing a truck and fifth wheel and hitting the road. Homeschooling our kids on the road and letting them experience a life not many get the chance to. He saw us freeing up all of our time, our hearts and our minds to be open to ANYTHING God wanted for us to do. A time to grow closer to Him. A season to empty ourselves of us and let Him do a work in and through us. So, we listed our home.

Side note: isn’t this beautiful? Okay, real talk. It was HARD for me. My number one goal outside of being a good daughter to my Heavenly Father is being a good, supportive and submissive wife. It’s important to me. We have come so far in our marriage through trials, that I realize my marriage HAS to come first of all my relationships. So as I was trying to do that, I was completely terrified. Yes, I love the thought! Yes, I love to travel! Yes, I would LOVE to have Michael with us every day! But there was SO MANY unknowns. Couldn’t we just do all of this awesomeness and not sell the house?!
All of a sudden Michael had turned into me (a dreamer, a doer, full faith, let’s go!) so then I turned into him (need for security, a plan, a reason). Crazy how that happens, huh?
So I struggled. Our families are wonderful. But there were some hard conversations. There was disappointment. There were questions that I had no answers to. That was hard. The enemy told me I was being an irresponsible parent. So don’t think it was all beautiful. There was a lot of beautiful…dreaming together, looking at fifth wheels, getting SO excited for all that would happen and how just being together would be so amazing. But there were some ugly cries for this Momma here and there along the way. I didn’t want to disappoint anybody and either way, disappointment was going to happen. That was a long side note…oops

As time moved on, the vision and passion God gave Michael began to truly take place in my heart. In my soul. I wanted it too. I began to let go of fear and grab onto faith. I began to believe. Anytime I would pray, all I could hear was “trust me baby girl”. So I did. I just put it in God’s hands. Then I wanted it. Bad. So many moments I overwhelmingly wanted to just pack up and GO! I created a blog just for this season. I sold things. I didn’t buy one item for this baby because I figured we’d be living on the road.

Let’s take a step into Michael’s shoes for a minute. Michael is level headed. He is calm. He is smart. He is bold in His beliefs. He is unwavering. He has always been comfortable staying right here, raising a family in the country and growing old together without doing anything out of the ordinary. Then God tells him this?! Can you imagine?! He had a choice. He could have chose to ignore that and continue life as we knew it. Or he could run with it, knowing the battles would come. Knowing he might look a fool. He chose the later. BOOM. Just fell even deeper in love with him typing that out. That’s MY husband! He took that step of crazy bold faith! Ah! That is not the man I married. THAT is the result of a man living FOR JESUS! Wow.
So he assumed God would sell our house just immediately. I mean duh, right?
But God didn’t. Instead it has been a rollercoaster of emotions. For six months. We would have buyers, then they’d choose something else last minute. We would have lookers…..then nothing. Can you imagine the doubt the enemy tried to plant in Michael’s head? I watched my husband battle. For 6 months he battled the lies of the enemy and truths of our Father. And even through moments of feeling beat up, he NEVER doubted that God gave him this vision. There were too many confirmations.

Our kids have been talking about and dreaming about life on the fifth wheel as much as us, if not more! They are ready. As ready as little ones can be that is. It has been fun dreaming as a family. Coming up with plans and bucket lists. Talking to them about doing things that might seem crazy to the rest of the world, but how so many stories in the Bible started out with someone looking crazy.

So what happened? Our contract on the house ended this month. February 2nd. We were in a contract with another family. They were going to buy our home contingent upon their house selling. But their house didn’t sell and the contract has ended.

When we got the call that it was over, we sobbed. We left the kids in the living room, went to our bedroom, held each other and cried. It was like the breath was taken out of us.

Why? What was the purpose for all of this? What the heck? I was angry. I was sad. I was relieved to have an answer. I was worried. I felt guilt for even crying. It doesn’t happen often. I was all of this. A basket of emotion. And so was Michael.

So what do you do?
When God gives you a vision…
So you make terrifying and bold moves…
Then nothing happens?

Well, you cry. You allow yourself to feel those emotions. You talk to Him about it. You reflect on the confirmations He gave you. You believe there is still a purpose for it all. You take it as a “not right now”. You accept that there is a REASON for the result and you move forward in THIS season with an anticipating heart that He is going to use you right where He has you. That He is going to speak and love and bless! That He is still God. He is in control. He knows what’s best. HIS WILL will prevail!

So that where we are folks. We are here, on the ridge with open hearts. We have big changes ahead, due to the fact that we made some life altering decisions in bold faith that we were going to be leaving here.

Your love, support and excitement for us has blessed us more than we can say! So thank you. Truly. For loving us well.

We plan to live a life that is unordinary, wherever that might be. We don’t plan to fit in. We don’t plan to go with the flow of the world. We don’t plan to live life as expected. We plan to seek more of Jesus! We plan to listen for God’s voice and direction on a DAILY basis. We will live a life completely surrendered.

Right now, we plan to get this house ready to bring home a baby in 5 weeks. And for that, we are EXCITED AND GRATEFUL. God bless you all. Truly, we pray He does.

To be continued…