I am finally settled….

So I haven't written on my blog in a while and I don't think anyone is too sad about it, but I think thats ok, but this has been fun for me to have something to look back on…..

First heres pictures of my room, I love that it finally feels put together and I don't have to worry about it anymore!  Thanks to Bailey for answering my questions daily on what I should do, I think its pretty good.  It was like an episode of Design on a Dime, there were a few IKEA, Walmart and Target trips.  The only thing that wasn't cheap was the duvet cover.  Everything else was dirt cheap….had to be :)  SO here we go…..

It's a job!

So I got a job…well, a contract job.  I am trying to be excited about it but I was really hoping to find something that would be permanent and offer good benefits and maybe a little more money.  BUT I will be working by the time that I move in with Jenna which is a huge blessing.  Just to know that money will be coming in will be a huge relief!  I am trying to work on my attitude about it because its with Hilton Worldwide which will be kind of fun and they do seem to keep their contractors on staff.  The contract is actually through December so that gives me some time to really figure out what my next move is going to be and supposedly they do tend to keep on their contractors.  There are also a lot of younger people there, so hopefully will open the door to new friends and such!  So really, I should be excited, but I just didn't expect to actually end up in a temporary job.

But the most exciting part of it is that it doesn't start until the 25th, so….I get to come home for a little bit!!! I miss my family, realized I left stuff at home that I wish I hadn't, and I will get to see friends!!  Everyones initial response is "are you going to go back to Dallas if you go home?"  OBVIOUSLY YES, as hard as it has been, I am so excited that in just a few weeks I will be working and in an apartment!  I have almost made it through the initial part of this process!  I am starting to feel a little bit more comfortable here and am ready to start making friends!

Next adventure is going to be buying a bed (which I found out today….I am really bad at, I have no idea how to get a cheap one….very frustrating!) and I need to get my car inspected, license plates, toll pass, and insurance.  These things STRESS ME OUT!  But its fine, I can do this, its like watching your money just fly out the window!!

So the journey continues….God has been faithful!

I don't even know...

Today, as I continue to receive rejection after rejection, I thought I would take the afternoon to just spend some time in the Word and listening to some truth on podcasts.  I think I was looking for a different kind of encouragement than I got :).

What I have realized….God asked me to move.  Just because I obeyed doesn't mean that I get a treat, a.k.a. a perfect job.  There is no reward and no reward should be expected.  I did simply what He asked.  Will He provide according to His will and His plan, yes.  Is it going to blow my mind?  Most likely, no….unless He will be the one glorified through it.  He didn't bring me down here to make my life easier.  He asked me to move, because He knows the end of the story.  I want the fairytale, but He desires the journey.  I think this is what He has been trying to get through my head for years.  Just because of what has happened in my life doesn't mean I get an upgrade on the blessings.  He only requires that I trust….but it nearly kills me to wait for Him to move.

I never realized how controlling I am.  In the past few weeks I have seen that SO clearly.  Knowing that someone else is cutting my clients hair, someone who I haven't seen cut hair before, someone that I haven't debriefed on what to do and what not to do.  What does it really matter?  There are many talented hairdresses, many FAR MORE talented than me.  I want to control which job I get (which I think is really really normal) but feel like I have absolutely no idea how to let it go and just trust God with it completely.  I want to control how people view me, how I come off to people, all those normal things to.  I have a vice grip on the control of my life and God is fighting HARD to rip it from my grasp.  Obviously His mere breath could catapult it out of my hands, but as I have said, its more about the lesson than just taking it from me.

I listened to a past sermon from Matt Chandler today called the angst of waiting.  He spent a majority of the time giving a recap of the journey of Israel until the time of Christ.  The first person he spoke on was Abraham.  Sometimes I forget that he waited and he waited and he waited for the Lord to bring him a child.  He was 100!!  I think 29 is old, good grief…..not that this is about having children.  Its about the Lord having timing that makes little sense to us….because Abraham being that old is quite a head scratcher to me.  And throughout the rest of the history, what a back and forth journey had….all because they would not turn their hearts and repent, Lord I pray that is not me.  After that I moved on to my Anne Graham Lotz devotional (its called Into the Word and I recommend it to everyone, its a year long book, and I break the weekly lesson up into smaller sections because you are really digging into the Word for each question!) Its in Hebrews reviewing the saints of chapter 11 and then looking at the life of Christ and all the obstacles He faced.  Why do I think He will deal with me differently?  Why would I want Him to?

So after receiving rejection emails from 2 of my top 3 jobs, I am waiting.  I am TRYING to let go and not be anxious.  I am trying to remember that I was fearfully and wonderfully made.  I am trying to remember that God is bigger than my lack of experience in any one area, bigger than my deficiencies, bigger than my fears.

2 WEEKS DOWN!

Whew, I have made it 2 weeks!  Can you believe it?  I sure cant!  I just had to look at my planner to see it I was right about the 2 weeks.  Still feeling a little foggy but I guess thats what you get when you aren't working and in a totally new place!

One of the things I LOVE is the church that Jenna and Jodi go to.  I love the people, the ministries and the preaching!  It is so nice to not need to church hop.  I like it, I am staying!!  I went to the Village Church on Saturday night to see "flat Matt," Matt Chandler.  What an incredible man of God who can truly speak of the goodness of the Lord through his life threatening cancer.  Sunday morning I got the hear the preaching at Watermark for the first time and was so blessed and encouraged by both times with the body.  So big praise!

I am still on this crazy job hunt.  I am tired of it.  I am not known for my patience and so this is a great character building opportunity :)  I am waiting to hear something on the 2 interviews that I have had and today I have a totally random job interview with the Toyota dealership to be a sales person there.  Not quite what I would see myself doing but honestly, there are benefits, a base salary and a signing bonus…its sounding pretty good right now!!  I have put a good amount of effort into trying to get a job at Women of Faith and I would say that Lord has definitely made it clear that He is closing that door.  Now that I have tried multiple avenues and I feel like someone actually reviewed it rather than just their computer system, I can surrender that desire to the Lord and move on!  So I have no idea what the Lord is going to provide, but I am still feeling confident that He will…..even though this wait is definitely not my favorite!

I have loved connecting with some old friends now that I am here.  So great to really have some fun time with Jodi and see her in this new season of life as she is a wife and serving in full time ministry!  Also so great to see my friend Hillary, we had such a fun friendship back in high school and have seen each other on and off since then.  It was so much fun to be able to hang out at her house and really catch up.  I love having these friendships to grow again!  And obviously Jenna, poor Jenna gets more than enough of me!  But she has continued to be a great support, cheerleader, and friend!

So right now I am just really learning to surrender to the Lord, all that I want and all that I feel that I need and trust Him even when it is terrifying to see all these people around me who have been unemployed for months!  I am continually reminded that He is God, He is the I AM, and He is my provider.  He has it all figured out and my anxiety is only getting in my way, not His!

Learning to trust

Wow, its almost been a week!  What a week its been!  Whew, glad I have made it through some of the firsts that I was the most nervous for.  Things have overall been going well.

Today I decided its necessary to organize my chaos of space bags.  For the first week I lived solely out of my space bags that were jammed packed with clothes….it took twice as long to get ready each day because I couldn't find entire outfits, I could find a few pieces, but not quite everything.  So today I really went at it!  Feels good to have an idea where all of my stuff is and know that I can dress semi-decently the next 5 weeks!

I can now make it to Jenna's apartment and to the church without using my GPS!!  2 places down, an entire city left to go!!  But atleast those are the 2 most important places I need to head to!  Today, I might try to figure my way out to the mall :)

Well as I came out here, I had NO IDEA what I wanted to do for a job.  On Saturday I went to a seminar that was for jobseekers through Watermark, while I was there, the speaker showed up these personality tests that are supposed to tell you what occupations are the best with your personality.  Since I took it, I have literally checked my email like every 15 minutes waiting for my results.  It can take a few days to get the results back and I am SUPER antsy to see what it says!!  I will let you know, could be entertaining, but would be great if something could tell me what I should do with my life!  I just like to talk, thats all I know!  The seminar also had some really good tips on resumes, filling out applications and questions to ask in interviews.  All information I definitely had never thought through.  I am going to another thing like that tomorrow morning and then I will head over to my interview with an insurance company!

Its time to start hitting the job search again!  If you read this, please pray that I feel the Lords leading or direction on the job search.  I am really praying that He leads me to a good fit for me, a place that I can stay at and grow at.  I would really love to have a job in the next week or two, not having a schedule is really starting to kill me!

Everyone needs a Jenna in their life….

Well the past few days have been quite the experience.  I am not totally sure how to feel about everything but there is a definite peace in the midst of this chaos!  I still can't believe I moved to Dallas…..recently it has felt a little bit more like I moved to Mexico, but either way, its all still so surreal.

The first surprising moment was that my living situation is a little different than I had anticipated.  I am living with my friend Anna, who I worked with back at Rick Mosley Hair.  She is this little 70 year old Brazilian spitfire who feeds me NONSTOP!!  But little did I know, her 40 year old son lives there too.  I had asked a few of the people who have kept in better touch with her if her son lived there and they all said no.  They were definitely wrong.  So that is super awkward for me!  But I am making it work.  The hardest part of living with them is that I feel obligated to hang out with them a lot as they are doing my an enormous favor by letting me live there but there is no internet and no quiet, so its very difficult to search for jobs and get my resume out.

The first day I was here Anna took me all over her little area that she is comfortable with and we went to a few stores and she showed me some main places to go grocery shopping….if I want to cook authentic mexican food because for real, have never seen half of the items in those grocery stores.  Well I should have started out by saying that she made me the worlds largest breakfast.  All I that I said I wanted was a piece of toast, I got 2 pieces of toast, scrambled eggs, ham, banana, grapes, strawberries, a roll, coffee, orange juice and tea. I thought I was going to throw up for the rest of the day!   It was pretty intense.  Then we sat around and watched spanish novelas.  I am getting pretty good at guessing what is going on and the news is even more interesting in Spanish, its a total guessing game.  I will be so excited to finally get to watch TV in english again!

By time Jenna got off work that night, I was more than ready to see a different part of Dallas.  We went on a walk on Kitty Trail which is crazy popular and a great area.  It was so fun to really catch up on life and just hang out.  SUCH a blessing to have a friend like Jenna in my life.  We have known each other our whole lives pretty much and so there is just an ease to being together, and she is truly an incredible support.  She is so generous with her time and allowing me to tag along ALL THE TIME!  I feel terrible that I am so clingy, but I am beyond grateful for all that she has done for me.  She is a true friend, an incredible encouragement, and the kind of person that everyone needs in their life.

So by my second day, I was even more determined to find a job and find it fast.  I met with a recruiter which didn't turn out quite as encouraging as I had hoped.  I feel that being a hairstylist set me back to a lower salary level as I am not coming straight out of an administrative position.  I am starting to be very concerned.  I came out here sure that the Lord was bringing me here and He was going to bless me.  But what I am realizing is that what the Lord will provide might not be exactly what I hoped for.  He knows the whole plan and has everything taken care of but its hard at these moments to sit back and trust because people are not just falling all over themselves to hire me!!  I do realize it has only been a few days, but I am becoming more and more concerned.

So fun to going to the Mavericks game, Regi and Jodi so generously shared 2 of their extra tickets with Jenna and I.  So cool to get to enjoy the really fun parts of a big new city!  The other blessing has been finding out that Watermark Church has free wireless as Anna does not have the internet at her place and I need to be online looking for jobs!  What an incredible place to be able to just hang out!  They have a huge coffee shop that has so many comfy chairs and couches!

So the basic overview of the past few days….this is when it all comes down to how much do I trust?  Right now, how much do I take the Lord at His Word and His Word alone?  I have some pretty big requests right now, do I believe He will be faithful?  Do I believe that I can handle 5 more weeks living with a women who is so sweet and wonderful but doesn't totally understand personal space?  Can I throw it all on the Lord or am I going to continue to hold on and try to work in my own power?  And can I look at all that the Lord has provided so far and praise Him for that as I wait for other areas to come together?  He has provided abundantly through even through Jenna!  And I have a nice place to sleep and as much food as any person could ever need.  I am very blessed, its just so easy to loose sight of that.

THIS IS IT! ITS TIME TO HIT THE ROAD

WOW!  I am in complete awe of the fact that I am actually following through with the decision to move.  I should try to count the amount of times I have told Bailey that I would move somewhere with her, and then never did!  I know why I never went, this is CRAZY HARD!  I cry at the drop of a hat anyways, now its a victory for me to go an hour without tears.  I am sitting here in my room that looks so pathetic with the "heart of it all" taken out.  All my pictures are gone, a lot of my clothes are out of here and everything that made it feel cozy is packed.  Its sad…..

But one of my favorite things about saying goodbye was realizing that one of the very hardest goodbyes was my sister in law.  When PJ and Emily first got married, I NEVER thought we would have the relationship that we have now.  I am beyond blessed by the woman my brother chose, good grief, he's beyond blessed, he lucked out :)  Emily has become a sister, I prefer to drop the in-law because she's in my inner circle now!  She's a great mother, and wife and all that, but most of all, she is an incredible support, an incredible cheerleader and THE MOST GRACIOUS person I have ever met.  She should really not be nice to me after some of the things I put her through.  I have loved having a sister, having someone to talk through everything with.  Sometimes I would prefer to talk to her over my brother, and nobody has ever held that status before.  I love to see how Gods plans turn out so much better than our own.  Emily is an incredible addition to our family and I didn't see it for a time….but for sure, now I do!

I have an 11 hour drive, I have never driven that long, ever….kinda intimidating, but even more intimidating when you have a car packed to the max!  Then Wednesday, its time to hit it hard with the job search.  Not only is it completely unlike me to pack up and move, its totally out of my realm of thinking to move somewhere without a job.  WHAT!?!  Whose idea was this?  Ridiculous!

But before all that, I have to say goodbye to my mom.  The single most difficult moment of the entire adventure.  I don't know how to leave her.  I don't know how to trust that she's going to be ok, I don't know how to be the one that hurts her.  I love our Sunday lunches and shopping.  I love when I am sick knowing she will be right there.  I love knowing I can cry on her shoulder.  I love knowing she is ok.  I love being her daughter.  Our relationship isn't perfect, but really she is the BEST shopping partner, she is the BEST supporter and cheerleader, she is the BEST at reading me.  We just have a rhythm.  She's just my mom and I love her the most.  Now we are just going to be crazy worried about each other.  I just cant tell you how hard this is.  I have no idea if its because its because she's a widow, so it really is the two of us or if its just this hard to move away for most daughters.  But her being alone really does add to the nervousness.  PJ and Emily move in September to Africa and at that point, all her children will be gone.  What in the world is the Lord doing?

Well this is it, with tears streaming down my face, I can honestly say, I hate that this hurts this much.  I am excited to see my friends in Dallas and to see a new city, but this is going to be a challenging experience to put myself out there and make new friends.  It doesn't come easily for me to walk into a room and just start talking to people, especially when I am the outsider.  I am SO NERVOUS for that.  I have never ever had to build a whole new network of friends outside of college.  In college you atleast have a few hundred or more people who need to make new friends, but when you move to a new city, everyone already has their friends.  They don't need to make new ones.  Talk about a journey of purely trusting the Lord.  One time a friend challenged me that in every conversation I have, to try to find a way to bless the other person rather than waiting for the conversation with that person to bless me.  With that kind of attitude, its no longer a conversation of awkwardness of whether or not they are going to like me, but totally about if I can be Christ to them.  And at the end of the day, we truly are called to be Christ to others.

Goodbyes

I started this blog to show my journey and a huge part of the journey that I would like to completely cut out and ignore is the part of the actual goodbye.  I had fooled myself into thinking that saying goodbye wasn't going to be that hard, I was the one going on the adventure, I am the one thats supposed to have excitement to temper the sadness….but its not working out that way at all.  

Lets be honest, I have a lot of friends, but I don't have a ton of friends that I let into my life enough for it to be hard for me to say goodbye to them.  But there are a handful of them and those select few have been incredible friends that I cannot begin to describe how much I am going to miss.  The only thing that makes it easier is that they are all starting a new chapter of their lives as they are getting married and starting sweet little families.

I went out to dinner with one of my most precious friends, Lisa, last week and she got teary when she talked about how this was probably our last dinner together for a long time and I was totally emotionless until halfway through dinner she was talking about some things going on in her and all of the sudden, it hit me, this was it.  Our dinners had become less frequent, but she is one of my few friends that I completely unload on her and she unloads on me, we share advice and I truly, deeply value her advice.  I couldn't say goodbye.  I don't know how to say goodbye to her.  I don't want to say goodbye to her.  But I have atleast put that goodbye off until Sunday night, we found one more small opening right before I leave…but watch out water works…we have been through a lot and I value her friendship so much.

Then theres my family, tonight as I wrapping my nieces birthday presents, I finally thought about saying goodbye to my family.  We have so much change coming up.  There are so many goodbyes ahead of us.  I think I have a change phobia or a goodbye phobia because literally I feel paralyzed at the thought.  I remember being Sarah's age and taking my dad to the airport because he had to take business trips semi-regularly.  Back then you could actually walk up to the gate (for some reason that blows my mind that that was ever even possible) and when he would get on the plane I would stand at the window and literally sob, like I couldn't even function, uncontrollable sobs…..and he was coming back in a few days.  Now, now I am leaving my family and realize I wont see them for months and after a few months, I wont see them for maybe a year.  HOW DO PEOPLE FUNCTION LIKE THIS?  It seems unnatural.  It seems unnatural to love people and then not be apart of their lives like you used to be.  I literally feel like my heart might truly rip right out of my chest.  It is going to be so intensely painful.  And yet people do it.  My friends that live down there did it.  They packed up and left.  Do I have some strange, unusual attachment to my family?  Probably.  I don't know if this is true or not, but I have heard that once you have experienced the extreme grief of a significant loss that things just hurt worse.  I don't know, I don't remember what it felt like to say goodbye before my dad died, because that grief overshadows any pain I ever felt before that point.  But maybe it is just overshadowed and I have always been this big of a cry baby….thats more likely!  

So as I sit and cry about how sad this is for me, I am reminded what makes up life…. and all that I am worried about right now, isn't it.  Its not about being in the same state as my family and friends and everyone I love.  Its about having faith that is so set on Christ that as I get out of this boat, I am walking on that water.  I believe that the Lord has a plan and if its His plan….its gonna be good!  And as  I walk away from all that is familiar and comfortable is when He can meet me face to face and truly walk beside me.

(and one a side note, I think going through this has helped me be a little more gracious to PJ and Emily as they look towards moving to Africa….I tend to not have the world's best attitude about it….and yet they are leaving behind so much and headed to a much more difficult future then I am!  I am going to live it up in Dallas (for the Lords sake of course :) ) but they are headed to a completely new culture to do some real incredible stuff with 2 small children.  They kind of have the bigger challenge, I guess :)  Obviously they do!)

The Interrupted Life

Are there even words for the past 2 weeks?  Its been emotional to say the least.  As I have continued to tell my clients and bring things to a close in Des Moines, I have doubted my decision more and more each day.  This is so outside of my personality to do something like this, walk away from people, and walk away from  a job that I like.  Not only that, but I am moving to a place that I literally know almost nothing about.  I have gotten A LOT of negative feedback from friends and coworkers and as much as of a people pleaser as I am, that is torture.

At the end of each day, I cant believe that I am following through with this.  I have been worried about the weather down there (I forgot to consider how HOT it is there!), if I am going to be able to make friends, if I can even navigate a new town, will I be able to find a job, will I miss my family too much….. I practically have panic attacks when I think about it!  And people around me continue to reinforce my fears and continually tell me I will never last down there.  Normally that would make my resolve stronger, but this time it is only help to break it down.  This time I am hearing what they are saying and terrified that they might be right.  But can someone decide I wont last because I don't know the exact location of where I will be or because its hot down there (its cold and icy here and yet I have stayed for 29 years!!) or because I am leaving so much behind?

I joined my Monday bible study today in the study that they are going through on Jonah: A Life Interrupted.  Once again, the Lord was so good and affirmed that this decision isn't about what people think of me (both here in Iowa and in Dallas as I try to build friendships) but about following Him as He has spoken to me!  We all know the story of Jonah and can obviously pick out important principles but to really be reminded that God called Jonah to something that he was not only not excited about but he literally ran away from.  Thankfully, I am excited to move to Dallas, but its just so unknown.  In the past two weeks, I have been a little tempted to back out….even though at this point- thats not possible, I'm too committed at this point.  But throughout this process in the past few months I have joked that I am afraid if I don't move willingly, God is going to send a tornado to carry me down there- that is how serious He is about.  

I was reminded that God doesn't often call us to a life within the confines of our comfort zones, He's doesn't need my help to take care of my mom, He doesn't need me in my friends lives to fulfill them.  What He has called me to isn't dependent on my emotions!  He is calling me OUT of my comfort zone, OUT of my life that makes sense and INTO a period of my life that I am forced to look only to Him to supply my needs!  My God is the I AM, He is all that I need and holds all power to supply for the simplest and smallest desires of my heart.  I am blessed to be called out and into a place to experience exactly that.

One of my favorite points in this lesson was that she pointed out that there were two other prophets in Jonah't time…..but God didn't call them to go to Nineveh, He didn't use them as back up, they weren't even a consideration in the plan.  God called Jonah to something different.  He didn't have the same plan for him, and we see from Jonahs reaction that he definitely wasn't pumped about God's different calling on his life.  I too often look at  my life and am continually perplexed by why my life is so different then the norm and so DRASTICALLY different than the plan I had laid out for my life.  I had a great plan, a plan that would serve the Lord….and include a husband and kids….about 4 years ago.  How are my friends a marriage and 3 children past me?  Where did I miss the boat?  Why do they still have their families alive and close by?  OR why are they so much more successful then me?  What do they have that I don't?  WHY IS MY LIFE SO DIFFERENT THAN WHAT I PLANNED?  And what is my response going to be?  Am I going to run away and pay a huge price for that decision?  Or am I going to surrender and remember that when God places an abnormal calling on my life, it is because He has an abnormal result already prepared that He wants to produce in me!!


‎"Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I 
were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ." - Galatians 1:10  

I cannot wait to see what the Lord is going to do in and through my life!

This is how it all started….

Its hard to know where to begin with this story.  But basically, in the beginning of January I started going to a bible study at Johnston Evangelical Free Church (my home church that I was raised in) and joined woman of all age groups to go through a bible study by Kay Arthur, Priscilla Shirer, and Beth Moore.  What a HUGE blessing my time with them was.  Seriously, I loved my Monday afternoons with them!  Such Godly woman to discuss the Word with!  And obviously the bible study was amazing, I love these speakers and totally felt that the whole study was written just for me.  It spoke directly to my heart.

Lets take a step back for a moment….I am going to be very honest, the last year and a half has been very difficult for me.  I have questioned my faith a lot, made decisions that weren't the best and just really started to realize that I just didn't believe that God would anymore.  I believed that God had all power, but He just didn't seem to be using that power, He seemed to have forgotten that I have lost enough, hurt enough, and been through enough.  So walking into this study, I was empty, I was still loving my Lord but living pretty half hearted and constantly braced for what else He was going to take out of my life.  My dad passing away was enough and then I had two very heartbreaking relationships and the cherry on top of all of this was that the Lord called my brother and his family to Africa.  My niece Sarah had always felt like the life that we had been given after my dads life was lost.  She filled a little bit of that hole, I really cherished that.  And then the Lord chose to take her HALF WAY AROUND THE WORLD!  Thats not an easy one for me to take and then theres my beloved Aiden who melts my heart every time I pick him up and he lays his little head on my shoulder.  Love that more than anything!  He is such a comic!  And then theres PJ and Emily who have walked through the best and worst moments of the last six years.  They have constantly been my sounding board and my shoulders to cry on.  They are my family, I need my family.  But my plans for my whole family to all stay right here, comfortably together, is not the Lords plan.  So all that to say, thats where I was at in life when I walked into my bible study that first time in January.

Kay started us out by speaking out of Hebrews.  Now let me tell you, I LOVE Hebrews.  When I was in Moody, I took a class on it and the professor he taught this class was unreal, it was incredible. (now that same professor was my most feared professor when I took him for greek….he made me cry quite a few times.)  Kay focused on how the Hebrews had been heros of faith and had regressed to such a point that they were now merely infants in their faith.  That struck hard.  This was my story.  And as I sat there and listened to Kay speak, I heard the voice of the Lord tell me, its time to move.  Its time to step out in faith and go on an adventure just me and God.  Time to be in a place that I don't have a whole town full of people I can lean on and depend on and move to a place where I only have a few.  Time to learn to trust Him again.  And through the daily lessons, I was reminded to trust in the Word!

"If you cling to God's Word - believe Him, obey Him, not turn away no matter how difficult it gets - you will be able to preserve, to possess your soul.  Your soul is what makes you, you.  Faith wins!  It keeps your hear and mind under control."  So basic, but such a great reminder.   My faith makes me who I am and I have felt lost for the past year and a half.  When I question my faith, I hate the person I become!  In day to day life I see a drastic difference.  The Holy Spirit definitely helps me control my tongue, temper, and temptations.  

I have so much from this study that I learned, but that would make this post an entire book!  As I continued to go through the weeks I felt the Lord continue to reassure that God is more than able to surprise me.  Not just able, but able to do beyond what I can even think to ask for.  So as I considered heading out Iowa, He continued to assure me this is what He was calling me to, but through this all leaving my mom, and my friends, and my job, and all the comforts of my life seemed beyond overwhelming.

But heres the best part of the story…the Lord knows my heart and my mind for sure because when He has something for me, He cant deal with me in simple ways, He needs to make a neon sign over it and do a little dance for me to get the clue that He's really serious about it!  I had all but decided I couldn't do it, couldn't face leaving it all behind…..and then I went to church!

I walked in late, sat in the last row by myself and wasn't super pumped about being there….but once again the Lord wrote this just for me!  This was probably the best sermon I have ever heard at Valley.  Pastor Quintin had 4 points (1) God has a purpose.  Am I listening? (2) There are no accidents.  How does God want to use me? (3) Expect push back.  How will I respond? (4) Opportunity knows at unexpected times.  Am I ready to see lives changed?   All four of those points spoke to heart and my thought life on this decision.  I was definitely challenged by this.

But my favorite moment was when the Childrens Pastor came up to me and said that the Lord laid things on his heart that he felt he needed to tell me.  All the things he said really didn't make that much sense to him and he had no idea if it would even affect my life.  The words he spoke, spoke straight to my heart of hearts of why I had to continue forward in this adventure.  Those words took all of the other reasons for moving or not moving off the table.  At that moment, I decided I was moving because God said so.  Its that basic.  When people ask me why, its hard to say.  I don't have a persuasive reason, I have one reason, He said so.

Now maybe this isn't such a cool story to you, maybe it doesn't hit you that hard.  But coming out of 6 years of feeling like God wasn't near, didn't care and really wasn't a comfort….it is so intense for me to have Him speak so strongly and comfort so fully!  Some things are so personal, that no one can truly understand it.  But its been so encouraging and so exciting!  It kills me to leave so many people, and I will cry a lot, but its worth it!  Its so worth it!