highlights

The call to move has been rolling in from the Lord in pieces for the last 2 years. And now the moving is happening. My family and I are moving from upstate New York to central Florida. The process of leaving everything we have known and help build in our church, our home that we have brought 3 children into - leaving it now seems like a crazy dream. It seems like a vacation except we are never going back 'home' when we are done. BUT it is God's good plan and I am excited to see what is next ... how can it not be good when the calling to leave was so clearly GOD... you just can't help but say - yes.

I have told and retold the story of our moving so many times that it seems redundant to retell it here. BUT there are a couple of highlights that I want to record.

In all the ups and downs of this process ... wondering what God was doing, where He was leading us, waiting and endless waiting ... as soon as He spoke to me 2 years ago in the Fall - when our basement had collapsed - that I was only going to be living there for 2 more years ... I never once doubted that we were going to move this summer. God just gifted me the faith to believe that His word on this WAS/IS true. I think that is amazing. I am grateful for that gift ... and it came in handy as an encouragement to my husband and others on many occasions. Faith in God's word ... whether scripture (which should be preeminent) or given through the Spirit ... is a rock solid place to stand when everything else seems so uncertain - so unknown.

We have so many promises in scripture ... so many things to stand on ... why not ask God to make even more promises come alive in our hearts. Make those crazy things we read that Jesus says ... actually be true in us too. Like we will do even greater works than He did!?... that we can be one with Jesus?!, that the Spirit can cause our hearts to overflow with love, and joy and peace, and patience etc... that IS all for US! Amazing.

The other thing that has amazed me - just how much The Lord asked me to do up until the very end! Way back in December I felt like God had released me from the mission He had me one for the last couple of years. I had been set out to pray - pray for massive things to change at our church, for the Spirit to move afresh, for darkness to be put down, for sin to be repented of ... the list goes on! But when He removed that burden and gave me a break in December and January ... it was hard to let go of all of that! Because that work, though hard, felt awesome - felt right to be a part of! He told me it was a vacation time - a time of rest, but I didn't like it - and I didn't want what I didn't understand.

Then God stripped down a massive wall in our church - a huge stumbling block - a man in sin. And when that was revealed ... I could see my great need for that time of rest, but I didn't take it when I was given that chance ... I missed the blessing of calm before major storms ahead. And then so much more than just that storm was coming... there were decisions about moving, decisions about our house, there was TONS of counseling, planning the women's retreat, my father nearly dying from congestive heart failure and then later a major surgery, interviewing, travel, family visits, showing the house, packing, saying a thousand goodbyes, and moving. That list looks so small now ... but NONE of it it felt small - NONE of it IS small!

But in all that was hard ... Jesus was there. He was present. He was teaching me to abide. Teaching me to need Him. Teaching me to desperately need Him. Need Him every second, every breath. It was so hard but so good.

Both of these things are things I want to remember - that I want to keep living in. I want to LIVE in God's promises - residing on that ROCK ... and I want to always remember just how desperately I need Jesus - every second, every breath.