A Year Later

Exactly one year from today we told our kids we would be moving to Idaho.  We had made the decision a few days prior but this day made it official.  And exactly 6 months ago we got on a plane and left all I had ever known as home and we had known as a family.  As I sit and write this my mind is flooded with many thoughts over the past year.  Many emotions surface and I fight back tears.

I think of February when Rob and I travelled here to buy a house and how God showed up in unimaginable ways.  After a long day of looking at houses and an even longer night of no sleep we decided to go to church.  We just went to one that our realtor had mentioned.  The church was having a guest speaker, Jeremy, and he was speaking about anxiety...interesting.  After church we introduced ourselves, shared with him why we were there that specific morning and asked for prayer.  One week before we moved here that church announced they were hiring a new pastor and it was going to be Jeremy.  Today, Jeremy and his wife, Stephanie are our dear friends.  We attend that church, that is about 5 minutes from our house and definitely feel God moving through it in our community.  God was with us.

I think of a morning in church when I was feeling very sad.  Ya know how churches do that churchy thing where they tell you to say hi to someone you don't know.  Well, I said hi to the guy sitting right next to me and began to tell him we had just moved here.  He said, "From where?".  I said, "Ohio".  "Where in Ohio?"  "Between Dayton and Cincinnati."  "Where between Dayton and Cincinnati?"  "Centerville."  "I lived in Kettering and went to Fairmont High School."  May not seem like much to you, but to me!!!  I grew up in Kettering and went to Fairmont High School!!!  I felt God saying, "I see you my daughter.  I know you feel alone, but I SEE YOU!  I am with you."

I think of the week the kids went to camp and I was a hot mess.  I was so worried because they would be jet skiing and tubing, and white water rafting with people they didn't even know.  And then as the week went on and I saw pictures of there smiles with other kids their age I knew we were all going to be okay.  God was with them.

I think of a Facebook post I read of a woman, Lisa, who said, "My family and I are moving from Georgia.  I have a 7th grade girl. (she has other kids too but that one stuck out to me) I would love to meet some people."  So what do I do as an extrovert?  I message her and say, "hey.  I am new here too and I have a 7th grade girl.  Let's get together."  So, we met at the zoo (dragging our children along) and the rest is history.  We had our first Thanksgiving in Idaho with Lisa and her sweet family.  God was with us.

I also think of days sitting in my closet crying texting my friends in Ohio of how sad I was.  And of getting a phone call that someone I love was in the hospital and not being able to get to them.  (Worst feeling ever.)  And of lying on Carys' bed as she sobbed because dance is not the same here and she just wants to be with Miss Holly and Miss Andrea and her dance friends.  And arguing with Broderick (because he's 15) because he doesn't know how to verbally express what he is feeling.  Even in those hard times God was with us.

There has not been one day, not one, that I have questioned our move here.  There has not been one day that I have wondered why we did this.  There has not been one day I regretted moving.  There have been many days that I wake up and literally have to give myself a pep talk to get out of bed.  It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy when EVERYTHING has changed.  But God whispers, "I am with you" every.single.day.

Tonight we will host our first (Idaho) annual Christmas party. One year after we officially made the decision to move, my house will be filled with new friends to celebrate Emmanuel, God with us.  Coincidence?  I think not.

New Year! New Adventure!

Over 2 years have passed since I last updated this space of the world.  I love writing here and have missed it immensely.  Over the past 2+ years many things have changed and many things are about change.  That is why I am revamping the blog.

First, we must rewind to a little over a year ago...

As I mentioned in my last post, we moved to a new house after looking at moving closer to Rob's work.  We love this house and its location.  However, there were some things going on and I felt stirred to pray about Rob's current job situation.  He had been with this company for around 20 years and they have been so good to us, but we both felt like something needed to change.  So, I just started praying...I can't tell you exactly what I was praying but it was something along the lines of "change".  About a month after I started praying this Rob called me and said, "Are you sitting down?"  I replied, "no, why?"  He said, "What exactly have you been praying?"  My first thought was, oh crap!  He's losing his job!  ok...I prayed about this so if so, it's all good.  He proceeded to tell me that the company was being bought and what the could mean for him and us.  My heart started beating at a more normal pace and I wasn't freaking out as much.  I just kept thinking, I prayed for change and this is definitely that so it's going to be fine.  Different, sure.  Hard, maybe.  But fine nonetheless.

Fast forward a few months...

Things with the buying/selling of the company were almost final.  Rob was approached with the question if we would relocate.  See, the main office would now be in Boise, Idaho not Newport, Kentucky.  We talked about it and felt like we needed to say yes we would be willing.  If I had prayed about "change" then I had to be willing to go where God was leading.  Last December Rob and I both took a trip to Boise to see if we really were willing to move.  To our surprise, we both really liked it.  It has the same Midwest feel as Ohio but with mountains!  Time passed and nothing really ever came of the relocation.  We continued to settle into our new (we've lived here for 2 1/2 years now) house, doing remodeling projects and such.  We switched churches (another post for another time) and have fallen in love with it and met new friends that we are coming to adore.

Then about a month ago Rob came home from work and we had a very emotional conversation...relocating had been brought back up.  This time it was very serious.  We spent a week praying and seeking counsel and asking a lot of questions.  We talked to the kids and told them what was going on.  We asked how they felt and told them to start praying.  They could pray that we do move or don't.  They could tell God they don't want to or they do.  We encouraged them to have their own faith journey in this process.  After nearly a month we had all the information we felt we needed to make a decision.  It is with great excitement we announce we will be relocating to Boise!!!

Even typing that makes my stomach flip and feels fake...it's not.  As you can imagine there is many emotions with this decision...fear, excitement, anticipation, and the list goes on.  Rob and I truly believe this is a huge faith step and are very excited about what God is going to do in our lives over the next year.  We will absolutely miss our family and friends and our church and our house.  However, for the past few years our motto has been, "our biggest blessing could be on the other side of the hardest yes."  We adopted that phrase before I went to Africa because I was terrified to go.  It turns out, one of my greatest blessings was indeed on the other side of the yes to go.  I believe the same about this.  I don't know what God has in store but I believe it will be a blessing.  Hard, yes.  Different, sure. But a blessing nonetheless.

Closing Day

Today is closing day people!! To say I am a bit excited is kind of an understatement.  We have been packing and doing all kinds of work to get ready for this day.  The next week will be pretty crazy because we have some sort of work being done at the new house everyday and then we move on Thursday.  But I say, "Bring it on!!!"

You might be wondering where we are moving. Or maybe you don't care.  Either way, I am going to give you a little back ground on this process we have been going through for the past several months. 

A few months ago Rob's office moved.  Now instead of a 30 minute commute he has an hour to an hour and half commute.  And a few nights it has been a 2 hour commute.  For several months we have talked, prayed, fasted and considered moving to another state because of this commute.  It made sense in our heads...add 3 hours back into our family, save on gas money, keep the mileage down on Rob's car, be closer to his work so he could meet us for lunch, come to the kids school activities.  The list goes on and on of logical reasons to move.  We tried to move.  We looked at houses.  We contacted schools. We researched good areas to live.  But we kept getting the answer no.  It was a rough couple of months.  The weekend before we put our house on the market we spent a whole day down by Rob's work.  We drove by A LOT of houses and drove around the community.  We both came home that night with the same feeling...if we move there we are being disobedient.  Makes zero sense to most people.  But we are not most people. We had prayed and asked God to speak very clearly to us and that day He did.  And while logistically it makes sense to move closer to Rob's work, for whatever reason, we believe God wants us to stay in the community we are in. We are not sure why, but we are choosing to trust His plan.

We really didn't think we would move from the house we live in now.  But again through a series of kind of random events we found a house and absolutely fell in love with it.  I'm not lying when I say as soon as we pulled in the driveway I knew it was our house. Now, I'm not say the Lord spoke to me or it was some divine moment.  I am simply saying, I had a feeling.  It felt like home.  It felt like us.  It had everything I would ever want in a home and then some.  And ever since we made the offer on the house I can see God's hand in all the details.  It has been so much fun to watch Him work. 

We are super excited for the next chapter of our lives and what He has for us.  We want our family to be used for His glory and His kingdom purpose.  We trust that while this season may be hard and we may need to sacrifice some things, like family time and gas money, he has a purpose.  And we fully believe that in obedience to Him there is great blessing.  Blessings always out weight the sacrifice. We trust that it will all be worth it.