I can’t believe it’s been a little over a year since my last post! Half of me is ashamed I had no words to write, but the other half of me gets how jumbled my mind has been! Nothing would have really made sense. It’s been quite the year. Since it would take way too much time and the details are too in depth, lets break it down to the highlights!
The release……
2021 brought a sense of refreshment from 2020 that was quickly overcome by a sense of dread and frustration that the year would basically be the exact same with no end in sight. I know y’all understand what I mean. In our experience, our friendly 2020 virus led to virtual classes. Virtual classes led to questions about the school district. Questions led to research into the district. Research led to corruption. School district corruption led my husband to run for school board. Running for school board led to my family being targeted by activist groups and individuals who sought to slander us. Being targeted led to my kids being singled out in school and harassed. Being harassed led to us homeschooling, and ultimately leaving the overbearing and corrupt state of New York. Those who know me, know this was not an easy decision, but when my husband had the opportunity to work from another state, I knew it was only a matter of time. The hardest thing to wrap my mind around was the concept of leaving my family. Most of my family is in New York. My sister, being in Ohio, still wasn’t that far. My husband grew up in our local town. He is a homebody. For him to consider leaving his childhood town, and his dad who still lives in the house my husband was raised, well, it would have been an act of God. There is no way my husband would have ever seriously considered leaving. I guess when you go through something lifechanging, things that once were only distant thoughts can quickly become reality. For better or worse if you really think about it. Even still, things were hard last year. On top of the things we experienced, we still had our normal life. I still served at church as worship leader and music deacon. I still worked full time and ran a business. My kids were still involved in their activities. We were still actively involved in school board meetings, and my husband still served on the town’s republican committee. It was a busy year! When I decided to homeschool fall of 2021 for the year, it added another item to my plate that I wasn’t truly ready for. Praise God, he equips us when He calls us! Thankfully, my kids are doing quite well in school, even if I have felt inadequate.
So how do I write into a short blog post everything the Lord has been doing over the past year? Because I do want to give Him the glory! How can I explain everything I have learned so that I may pass on that wisdom to my readers? I’m not sure I actually can. I guess all I can do is sum it up into one phrase… The Lord led us to a battlefield, He asked us to fight in His name to an unknown end at an unknown time, we obeyed, and then He released us.
My husband and I took a trip down to South Carolina to visit an area we were considering relocating to. A small town outside of Spartanburg. Coming off the battlefield we had been on, you better believe we picked that town apart. Even before we visited, I was uncertain if this was truly what we wanted to do. I was hesitant but continued to trust the Lord. I told my husband one evening that I was having a hard time differentiating between my personal emotions and the Lord’s voice, and I needed to know he was also bringing this decision before Him. I told him I trusted that he was listening closely to the Lord, and that if he truly felt this was the right choice, then I would be at peace with it. I knew the Lord would speak clearly to him and I could submit to my husband’s guidance, even if it hurt me to think of leaving my family; heck, I was also leaving my career, my church community, my business I had built, and my best friends! One of our last nights on our trip, I finally was able to give God complete control of the situation. I finally said, “Ok Lord, whatever You want, we will do. Wherever You want us to go we will go.” We got home, put our house on the market as an act of faith, and sold it in a few days for way over our asking price. The Lord confirmed the decision to leave New York and blessed us in the sale of our house. We, then, put a deposit on our dream home we were gifted with to build. The pieces just fell into place. For the first time in a while, I had complete peace. I was ok, even if I was leaving my family, I knew I was with the Lord.
The lesson…..
A week or so later, we found out my sister-in-law, whom I love dearly, had breast cancer. Let me say that if the Lord had revealed that to me before we made all these decisions, there would have been no conversation. There would have been no “whatever you want, Lord.” That door would have been shut. The problem is that the door would have been shut by me. In the weeks following, I was rebuked time after time by God. I wrestled with my love for my family and desire to be there through the hard times, and my willingness to trust God knowing He had given us a clear answer. I wrestled with knowing my brother was going to be taking over as head pastor at our church while also dealing with his wife going through cancer, and the guilt of not being able to support them closely. A wise friend told me that God’s ability to work doesn’t change and isn’t dependent on whether I am present or not. God is still going to do His work. I clung to that, and still do.
If you’re anything like me, you live life with a future-thinking lens. It has its pros and cons. Trusting the Lord through the unknown does not sit well with these types of people. We like to have a game plan. We tend to write down everything. We love lists. We love getting to the end of our list having crossed off everything; we get satisfaction from knowing everything has been completed. We also tend to be control freaks. The word perfectionism isn’t about the end result, but how well we preformed to get to the end result. We have ways, and our ways make the most sense to us. That has honestly been the biggest area of growth for me over the past year. I have literally no idea what the future holds at this point. I don’t know what life in South Carolina will look like. I don’t know if I’ll ever have a business again. I don’t know what friends I’ll make or what church we will find. I don’t know how the Lord will use us or what opportunities my family will have. I don’t know how my kids will adjust or what kind of people they’ll meet. I don’t know what the future holds for my sister-in-law and her healing journey. I don’t know. What I do know is that the Lord brought us through this past year, prepping us for the unknown, and that He has released us into a new season of life. What I do know is that no matter what we encounter or struggles we face, His ways are always higher than my ways. His plans are always better than my plans… even if I’ve made a list. When I let go, let God, and stop living in fear of the unknown, I find freedom, time and time again. You stop saying, “what if” and start saying, “even if…” In that, there is true freedom.
Unleashed 