On the Road Again…

After about 15 hours of travel over 3 days with a 2 1/2 year old and an 11 week old we have arrived in Gladstone for 3 weeks.  Then its about another 15 hours of travel over 3 days back north to find a place to live in Cairns.  I thought I would give a brief update – my mom pointed out to me the other day that the last post I wrote talked about me being pregnant which is no longer the case.  As stated above we now have a daughter named Ada, who at under 3 months has already started travelling.  I calculated once that Seth in the first 2 years of his life has travelled about 1/4 of it.  We’ve done a lot more moving around since having kids than in the DINK (double income no kids) years of our marriage.  I did have that usual fear people get that once they have kids they are really stuck.  Luckily I have a few great friends with kids who have travelled many placed around the world to push that fear aside.

We are still waiting to find out what God has in store for us which is an interesting journey in and of itself.  We recently had a ministry opportunity come up that we felt was finally what God had for us.  After so many possibilities arising that we did not feel right about, this was finally one we ‘knew’ was right.  Then it fell through and has left us a little shell shocked to say the least…what does that mean!?  It has been harder to trust God when that answer to prayer (or what we thought was answer to prayer) turned out not to be.  It’s the first time something like this has happened and so I’ve got no experience to look back on.  So here we are learning something new once again.  God is forever teaching (haven’t we learned enough? – how many times have I said that!). 

And so that is a summed up version of the last couple of months.  Not much in it (not that Ada isn’t much), but continuing the journey one step at a time and working hard to remember that God is in control.

Waiting Room

It’s a strange time for us…waiting for a baby and having no place of our own.  We’ve been in such expectation of God but with nothing eventuating as of yet it feels as though we’ve been sitting in a waiting room.  Sort of like God has other matters he must attend to before dealing with us -- after all, he would be pretty busy.  Then, just the other day we got an encouraging note from a friend we hadn’t spoken to in quite a long time, who had no idea of our circumstances, and it was such a good reminder that while it may feel like we are waiting for God to get around to us, he’s actually out there working for us right now – building our ‘house’ so that when it’s time we can walk in and everything will be set up ready to go.

Value

Just had an awesome time in the US, but far too many goodbyes.  After spending three weeks with my family (who, I have to mention, I love to pieces), we had the opportunity to make some good friends in California.  And as with a lot of experiences, God had something to say.

I was fortunate enough to attend the women’s conference that was running the weekend we arrived and was treated like a special guest.  I had a girl assigned to me to show me around, and I basically had free reign of the place.  There were two very gifted speakers at the conference, one of whom I had the chance to have lunch with, not to mention, getting know the pastors of this large church and being able to fellowship with them. 

But as I was attending the conference and getting treated like a queen, I found myself WAY outside of my comfort zone.  I felt uncomfortable just hanging out in the green room.  I felt I needed to be doing something.  After all, there were so many people working so hard to make the conference happen, I thought they deserved to be in my shoes much more than I did.  So I found myself sitting in the conference undeservingly, and that’s when God and I had a little chat.  I asked God what I was doing there and why it was that I got to be so blessed in this time, and He just asked me where I got my value from.  Because, to the world, if you want to be worth something, you had better get busy doing stuff.  But God reminded me that He places value on His children because he just plain loves them.  And that’s what he made clear to me.  He was just pouring a little love on me.  And I realized that He really wanted to treat me this way all the time, but because we need to learn and grow and remain humble, He unfortunately can’t (well, not yet anyways).  He also mentioned as I sat at lunch with two very influential ladies that He didn’t think any more highly of them than He did me.  They’ve done some amazing things simply because they have walked with God and God has given them the opportunity to be a part of what He is doing, and that’s all any of us has to do.

The Truth Is…

Sometimes I love the adventure of not knowing what is coming next…and sometimes I grow weary and wish things were laid out before me. 

I’m going to be giving birth to our beautiful little girl in a few months and the mother in me desires a home to bring her to, but the daughter of God in me has ‘wings like eagles’ I can run and not grow weary (Isaiah 40:31)… ‘ay there’s the rub’ as Hamlet would say.  And so I find myself eager to serve God in whatever is in store for our lives, but feeling anxious because I feel as if we’ve been groping around most of the time just searching for another foot hold to step into.

The other night I spent some time with the big man, asking for Him to speak to me on the subject.  I have often in the past gone into this prayer time only willing to hear God say ‘you can have that’ which he very rarely does, which causes me to come out of those times frustrated that God did not speak to me.  So I made sure to keep my mind open to whatever it was I needed to hear.

I thought maybe I should stop asking for things and let God do it, but that didn’t seem right to me because God cares about what is in our hearts and wants to bless us and give us the desires of our hearts… and so God took me back to a passage I had read about a week ago in Philippians 4:6

‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, which thanksgiving, present your requests to the Lord.’

And it became clear that the anxiety that I felt was not good, but asking for what is in my heart is good if it’s done with thanksgiving.  So now I ask the Lord for what is in my heart but I’m thankful for whatever he does because I know that it will be the best thing for us and also for the Kingdom of God.  And I know that God will bless us in whatever is in store no matter what happens.

Not Without Drama

Today is our official ‘away’ date.  However, there is the small matter found last night of a water pump or some such thing that needs fixing in the car…I suppose we should be grateful that Matt can fix it himself instead of having to book it in to a shop before we leave.  Our ETA was 9am, but has been delayed till probably 1pm…if the store has the part.  Then we stop off in Townsville, camp in Rockhampton, with a layover on the Sunshine coast, and then on to Brisbane and the airport…well, that’s the plan anyways.

Reflections

Our official move out date is April 9th…2 days short of exactly 2 years of living in our little house on the beach. 

Our time in that house has felt like a clean out.  The four years previous were a huge time of growth for us.  They were a heavy slog at times, where God kept us in our discomfort zone in order to mould us and chip off some rough edges.  But I think you will often find, those times of intense growth tend to fertilize a little bit of baggage.  The human in me could not help but grow a few extra chips on its shoulder.  And so, these past two years have felt like a big clean out.  God has brought me to a place where I can be content again, no matter what the situation…well, almost.  We have no idea what is to follow, but eagerly await the steps before us.  We’ve been walking blind for the past two years, knowing that our time in the house was temporary, but not knowing why, and now I find myself expectant of what God will do next because we have no job and no place to live…what the?!  More faith exercising…I sometimes feel like I’m running out of breath from it, but never seem to…

And Away We Go!

…Well, sort of.  We’ve got tickets booked to the States for the end of April, and Matt will be finishing his job shortly.  Because we will be travelling for over a month and Matt doesn’t have a job we are going to give up our house on the beach.  Oh and we are having another baby by the way.  Why does God keep doing things this way.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s exciting, but we keep ending up in these vulnerable positions, mostly when we are about to have a baby.

When I was pregnant with Seth and about to go on maternity leave, Matt called me up at work and told me he needed to resign, and he is not the type to leave a job if he doesn’t have another one lined up.  But in this case he was so stressed he couldn’t stay, so I knew it was important he leave the job.  And there we found ourselves -neither of us working and about to have a baby…I don’t recommend it, but in our case it was definitely a God thing.  For the past couple of years we had been talking about moving about an hour north, but were never able to because we both had work in town and there isn’t much work north.  But since we found ourselves suddenly in a position where we could go, we decided to.  And God confirmed this to us by giving us such a peace that we should not have had considering the position we were in.  Another confirmation came when we rang our landlords to say thanks for being such great landlords and they informed us they had a place about an hour and a half north on the beach not doing anything and they had recently wanted to rent it and asked if we would like it for cheap rent…what the…and that’s how we have found ourselves living on the beach for the past 2 years.  It’s been great, but a new baby seems to symbolize a bigger change than just the size of our family and so we find ourselves in that place again.  God has been signalling to us for about a year that change was coming so we’ve just been waiting for it.

(Interesting side note: when we first moved here I asked God to give me a bible verse/s about what was coming up next for us, and I felt to read the very end of Acts, not knowing what it was.  It reads as follows ‘For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him.  Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.’  I had ignored the part that said ‘for two whole years’ cause I thought that was a little too specific, but when we leave here it will be 2 years almost to the day…interesting)

Over the past year and a half we have struggled and changed and grown and struggled.  I have battled with being content and being a mother.  And we find ourselves in a place of peace and contentment (most of the time).  Even though I can actually see the change coming now, I have no frustration in waiting for it.  I’m finding it quite easy to sit back and let God do what God is going to do…it’s a really good place to be.  And since God’s in the drivers seat, I have no idea where we are going…and I don’t need to.  I can just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Set Your Heart on Things Above

We find ourselves in a familiar place.  A place of uncertainty.  It’s an exciting place, but also full of it’s own stresses.  A place where we need to ‘set our hearts on things above’ as Paul states in Colossians 3:1.  It’s too easy to look at the world around us and worry about the things of this world.  But we are trying to remember that as Christians we are not slaves to the circumstances of this world, and so we strive to set our hearts on things above.

It’s familiar but uncertain which almost seems like an oxymoron.  Everything is about to change, but we can’t see past our toes.  God hasn’t lit the path past each step that we’ve taken over the past year, but He has never led us astray before.  We should be full of faith constantly, knowing that God has never let us down.  But there is that ever present voice that says ‘maybe He will this time’.  Why is faith like that.  It’s a muscle that needs to be exercised or else it diminishes.  And so God has put weights on our faith…again…(since we are often too afraid to do it ourselves…can we not help but be grateful?)

And so here we find ourselves putting one foot in front of the other because the only other choice we have is to stand still and we were not made for that.  Time to hold our breath, close our eyes and jump when He says jump.