I've been wanting to post about the moving situation for a while now, but I wanted to wait until everything was rolling pretty good, just in case I was hearing God totally wrong. Plus, it's a long story and it's hard to find the time and the energy in the same day around here!!!
A couple years ago my dad had a stroke. We felt so far away when it happened. He was fine (mostly) but since then we have been talking about moving back to
Gainesville to be near family. Both mine and Vance's family live in
Gainesville.
My dad was doing pretty well, on lots of medication, but not really improving. He should have been getting better, but he wasn't. The company he worked for was so nice, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the time came where he wasn't able to work anymore. This was very stressful because it cut back my parents income. Luckily, they were still able to pay their bills, but there was no extra. Plus, now without a reason to get up and get out of the house every day, my dad was struggling.
Now we really wanted to move to
Gainesville. I was hoping that with myself and the girls close by we could get my dad up and moving again. Vance also wanted to move, dreaming of going back to school for computers. We started to pray, to ask God if this is what He wanted for our lives.
My mom was getting pretty stressed out. Not only did she have to work full time, but she had to take care of most of the housework and money was tighter than ever. I encouraged her to ask the church for help. Then I prayed for her and continued to pray about moving. I asked God what should we do and He showed me this:
If any woman who is a believer has widows in her family, she should help them and not let the church be burdened with them, so that the church can help those widows who are really in need. 1 Timothy 5:16
I had to call my mom back, tell her what I had found and encourage her that we believed we were supposed to come.
At this same time was when I was battling with the
rich man scripture. I was feeling burdened by our stuff and feeling a change coming, but I wasn't putting two and two together. It wasn't until I was giving a friend an update on my life that I saw two pieces of the puzzle fit together. God was working on our relationship with our stuff. Moving in with my parents would require us getting rid of most of our stuff. DUH! I started to cry.
Vance looked and looked for jobs. I continued to pray for signs of encouragement that this was the right decision.
Little things fell in our laps. I was stressed at one point about the amount of room our baby stuff takes up. We want more children but we didn't have the money to store it and we wouldn't have the room living with my parents. The bouncy seat was always on my mind. Everything else could be boxed up pretty tightly but the bouncy seat was just huge. I had a travel one, but I had given it to a friend of a friend who needed it.
Well one day my friend called "Hey, ____ is done with the seat, you want it back?" I know it sounds simple and silly, but this was a sign of encouragement to me. God saw me worrying about something and He provided the solution.
We were also stressing about having a garage sale. They are hard work and with both kids running around I knew it would be hard for Vance and I to do it alone. A friend offered to host a garage sale at her house and we ended up having a pretty good day, not only hanging out but getting rid of a lot of junk too!
God told us to pack. I didn't want to pack though. I wanted to wait until everything was rolling before I started packing. Vance didn't even have a job yet. Why on earth should I start packing. So I called a friend and whined about it. She agreed with me, "Don't pack, wait."
Us and our worldly ways. Right after I got off the phone with her a shelf crashed down in my bedroom. A shelf I had planned on packing first. I walked into the room and could feel the anger. I felt God saying "I asked you to do something, but instead of talking to me about it, you talked to someone else." I prayed for forgiveness then promptly started packing.
Another issue was our church. We go to a GREAT church that we love. I blogged about it
here. We wanted to be involved so badly, but as I prayed I kept feeling God say "NO!" Then I got frustrated and said "Why! Why have you lead us to this great church but won't allow us to become involved?" and He said "So you'll know what to look for when you move." "OK..." In the long run I see God was stretch my definition of a church, because even though I LOVED our church, it was not what we were looking for in a church at that time. God put us there, but that is a whole
nother story.
After our garage sale I expected huge things to happen. We were packing in faith, we had gotten rid of a lot of stuff, we were ready for the next step.
Nothing.
Looking back I think God didn't want me distracted with moving for Renee and my
birthday buddy. I believe He wanted me to focus on this so that I could witness a
miracle. I have never seen a healing like this before. I had been praying for more faith and He provided.
Shortly after the holidays I
begain to pray for a billboard. I felt like I hadn't heard from God in so long (really it had just been a month) and I wanted a HUGE sign to show me we were still on the right path. Vance couldn't find a job and I felt like maybe we were wrong. (Isn't it funny how you forget all those signs five seconds after they happen?)
One Sunday night I prayed and prayed. God, I need my billboard tomorrow. I need my encouragement tomorrow.
The next day I was bumming around on the Internet. I had been doing some research about church, church history and people out there trying to change what church had become. People trying to get it back to what it was supposed to be. The kind of church written about in the Bible. I ran across the name
Frank Viola and started reading on of his articles. I thought it was
SOOOO interesting. I looked up a couple of the books he wrote, added them to my Amazon list and got back to my day.
Later that day I started looking for house churches, organic churches, New Testament churches in
Gainesville. I ran across one and saw a familiar name, Frank Viola. Wait, I looked back at the article open in another tab and yes, it was the same name. Frank Viola lives in
Gainesville! I immediately emailed and found out that a church start is in the works for Fall 09. I called Vance and a good friend. I found my billboard!
This was in early
Janurary and I won't lie. Two weeks later, no jobs calling, we were getting discouraged again. Vance was considering working two jobs, just to make ends meet. Trying to do whatever he could. I hated the idea and talked him out of it. (I've asked for forgiveness to both Vance and God for this move, as I'm not sure it was the right thing to do.)
As we waited Vance filed our taxes. We were getting more than expected and were very excited about the possibility of paying off a large chunk of debt fast than we imagined. We were waiting on an exact number from the debt holder. We waited and waited. You would think they would get back to us pretty quickly, but it took over a week.
We got the call on a Monday. We could totally pay off the debt. This would free up $400 per month. This payment was a HUGE monthly burden and we were beyond thrilled!
Tuesday, Vance got a call about a job. BUT, it didn't pay enough. He told them he wasn't interested, then got off the phone. He sat down, crunched the numbers and I'll bet you can guess how much money less per month this job paid.
$400.
So to sum all that up, this job would pay our bills, which was basically what we were looking for, with no less, no more, because we could pay off the debt. I find this so funny. If they had called the week before Vance would have had to say No. There was no way we could have made it work. But they called THE VERY NEXT DAY after we found out we would have the debt totally paid off.
He called them back the next day. He went for an interview. He got the job. We're moving in a week and a half. And, you know how I have time to sit and write this crazy long post when we're moving in a week and a half. I'm already packed!!!
Next, miracle. Selling our house. Anyone want to live in beautiful Orange City??
This is some of the stuff we moved this weekend. Vance didn't think it would all fit, but we got everything but two crates in, plus some extra stuff not pictured.
We found this great coffee on our last trip to Gainesville! Sweetwater Coffee is not only yummy but they are are organic, fair trade, shade grown and generally just everything you want in a coffee. The flavor is amazing. Vance says it's probably because it's soooo fresh and hasn't been sitting in a warehouse for years. Look here to find it near you, or you can order from the website.
It is supposed to freeze again tonight so I think Vance will be making more ice art. I'll try to take some artsy pictures tomorrow!
Walking outside with the girls is usually the highlight of our day. It gives us a chance to talk to our neighbors, see wildlife and enjoy the warm sunshine. This time of year in Florida the weather is beautiful. Standing in the sun warms you up quickly and you can enjoy even the cooler days.
