I read my devotional today and for whatever reason it inspired me to open up about my recent months and how beautifully God has provided for me and my family. Unless your incredibly close to me you don't know that I had some pretty dark days not so very long ago. I didn't trust or understand the new path God is leading me and my family on and to be painfully honest, I resented it. Moving five hours away from my comfort zone was not my idea of a good time. Oh how I LOVED the "idea" of finally living day in and day out with my handsom, faithful and very hard working husband who has been on the road for over three years now. Notice how I said the IDEA of it? Being able to make it a reality was a whole different ballgame all together. I have to move. I have to leave the nearness of my parents and my wonderful best friends. The amount of times I have taken for granted that they are only an hour away hit me like an out of countrol avalanch. My children had to change what was familiar to them. The stress of it all seemed to pull us all further apart when this seemed to me to be a time we should be drawing closer together. I had enough. I gave up. You see I hit my lowest low ever. Women who I thought were my friends turned out to be something different than I understood them to be. People I bent over backwards to help and do things for were nowhere to be found when I was in need. People who dump on me and use me as a whiping post when life doesn't go their way turned a deaf ear to my pain or needs. I felt unappreciated, ugly, unloved, and undervalued, stressed, alone, broke, broken, the worst depression I could have imagined myself going through. Why on earth would I want to move all that way to feel like that all by myself? And then one day it all changed...literally in an instant. I gave it all back to God. I remember the exact moment that I remembered that I am a child of God and he has big plans for me and my family. My biggest problem in all of this was I was looking for humans relationships or a "place" to fill a need in my life that only God can fill. What a WOW moment! And how awesome have things been since! Have things been peachy and perfect with birds singing and rainbows since? No. Life is normal. We face our challenges daily just as we always have. However, my attitude towards those obsticals is soooo completely different.
We have found a little house near Wes's job and will be moving as a family as soon as school gets out. It is near a baseball field, the water, the city park...all in walking distance! The kids are now excited! I have time to pack neatly and get rid of or sell what we won't be able to take. We have both a short term plan and long term financial goal. We already have word of a few churches we want to try in the area. I am getting my resume out there. So on and so on. The best part of all is no matter where we are, my family and I meet over the phone or in person to read God's word every night. For the past several weeks, along with my friend Stephanie, we have been reading 1 Corinthians 13:4-15...Just incase your Bible isn't near...
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
It is amazing how much those words can change your life, your words, and your actions.
