It's been a while since I have shared a bit of our personal journey here. I've thought about it several times, but have had so much to process that I found myself procrastinating, feeling reserved, and talking myself out of it. My goal here (on this blog) was to share our journey as we packed up our things in 2016 and traveled around on this faith journey as a family. As exciting and adventurous as it all may sound (which it has had it's moments), we have also faced some of the most difficult, challenging, and vulnerable moments of our lives as well.
So, over the past weeks and months I have thought to myself...what if it would be just as encouraging to share our journey in the middle? What if it could be just as helpful for someone to hear the rough spots, and that we don't have all the answers, or that some of this journey has been a bit overwhelming and it doesn't make sense all of the time? As much as I would love to share with you how this journey ends, that we have reached the other side, and tell you how we got through it and made it to the finish line... we are not there yet. And maybe that's the point. So many times we wait until everything is "just right" and then we can actually miss it entirely. I know I don't normally share a ton of personal information about our family on the internet, like personal struggles, etc. There's already so much "stuff" out there to read or look at, so I like to just keep it light. If you take a look at my Instagram you would most likely find moments where I'm hunting down the good. Those moments that I am looking for the beauty, whether it's once a week or every other day. That's just more of a personal goal or hobby for myself that brings me joy in the midst of the mundane. But, as my heart leads me, I'm going to share with you a bit of where we are, and a bit of where I am, in good faith that this will bring encouragement to those reading. We don't want to forget this part of our journey, because it is part of our story. So what I can tell you is how we have gotten this far, how we are still looking to God and trusting Him, and in that are stories of faith and hope! This is the part of our story where I can look back and say "I'm glad we didn't give up".
So, here's a bit of a recap, and more detailed parts will come later. I shared a bit last fall about our travels from the midwest to the east coast and then back to the midwest. We were then able to go all the way to the west coast. We stayed in beautiful places like Northern California, Montana, Colorado. We crossed through about 23 states total beginning in June 2016 with a little under $800 in our pockets, no vehicle of our own, and no place to call home to come back to. How did we do that??? Well, sometimes I look back and wonder the exact same thing. The only real answer...God. He literally provided EVERY. SINGLE. THING. All that we needed (a roof over our heads and a bed to sleep in, food to eat, a vehicle to drive, and then even some extras along the way). We have tons of stories of God's provision, for how he provided a car (whether it was a rental, or a borrowed car), money for food, or people opening up their homes for us to stay for several nights, weeks, or even a few months. As I mentioned, this is something we will share more on in the future as we go back and collect the stories to share here. And at this point some of you might be reading this and wondering, why in the world would we do this? Well, if you've heard the saying "When God closes a door, He opens a window."...it felt kind of like that. When you find yourself knocking on all the doors (for a job, or a home...you know, all the "normal" stuff) and there is no answer at all, you have to then at some point question...could there be something else we are supposed to be doing because nothing else is working? Mind you, Brandon and I have been raised (and have learned more and more on our own over the years) that we can trust God and we want to follow His voice. So, after lots of praying together as a family, everyone (including our children) were in agreement that we should just go wherever God was leading. It was then that a window was opened. Someone called us out of the blue and said they were offering us their car for the month of June, we had a few invitations to some places to come and share songs, and we had enough money for the first part of our trip. And so it began.
We traveled the whole summer singing songs and telling a bit of our story with people in different states. In mid September we had enough money with a rental car to land back in Kansas City, Missouri where the last bits of our stuff remained in storage. Our thoughts were that we were going to pick up our things and work out a way to find a place of our own again and settle. We thought this whole faith journey was just for a few months over the summer, because we are a family of six with children that need schooling and just a normal rhythm in general...but things didn't go as we thought. It wasn't going to be as easy as we thought to just go back to "normal" living, right away.
Within the first week of arriving back to Kansas City we were staying in the home of friends and we were planning our transition. We had returned the rental car, and as concerning as that must sound to most, we were becoming quite used to God providing some sort of transportation and felt pretty confident something would work out as we were praying, trusting, and waiting. I mean He had gotten us this far (from the East coast to the West coast and places in between). Then, within that first week we got hit with some really heavy news, that our bank accounts had been levied by the IRS. [Okay, so at this point I would appreciate no judgement. People (especially the entrepeneur, self owned business types in this type of situation) make mistakes. We all do. It's just a higher risk if you own your own business. Every mistake falls on your back and you have to pick yourself up and keep moving. And from these mistakes we gain wisdom on how to do things better. This in itself is a longer story, but as I had mentioned earlier on in another post, my husband had his own business that he felt God leading him to close down in the Fall of 2015. Long story short, this left us with some major tax issues in the end.] So...the levy meant we had no access to our bank accounts, and any money we did have (which wasn't much) had been taken. We had faced many things in our marriage of 13 years. We had been without a home (in another transitional season) before, we had been jobless before, we had been car-less before, and we had even been without money before (and I mean bank accounts and our wallets being at $0.00). And each time God did make a way and showed us that ultimately He was our provider. BUT, we had never faced all of these challenges ALL AT THE SAME TIME! That week we found ourselves without a home of our own, without a vehicle, without a job, and without money all at the same time...with four little kids. All of the things that can bring some sort of earthly security were gone.
Needless to say that for the months that would follow, we were on a path to recover from this heavy blow. There were major emotions, questions, and concerns...but in the end all we could do was confess before God that we truly have nothing without him, and we needed His help. Things did begin to change quickly (within weeks actually). We were given a car (yes, given...which we will share later), we were offered places to stay with people we knew in the area, and our family qualified for food stamps so we could eat, and we were able to make bits of money here and there on odd end temporary jobs. But as weeks and months were going by we did not have a solution to our situation. We were still without a home of our own, and neither of us had a permanent job that could get us out of such a mess. Now for a person like myself, I naturally tend to lean more toward the introverted side. My husband is more of the social butterfly in our relationship. I'm the type where sometimes big crowds can be overwhelming to me, and I often would sigh relief once we could go home from a long day, or trip etc. I love people, but there's just something about being able to "go home, if you know what I mean. But here we were facing all of this in the presence of others, without "home" to go back to, and there really was no place to hide. We had no choice other than to accept this vulnerable season. We were in great need and that was that. During this time I was trying to hold it together the best I could, to be present for my kids, and still hold down homeschooling. The winter months were a bit rough and we battled quite a bit more sickness than I was used to. Back to back kids not feeling well. In the month of January our entire family got a horrible stomach bug that lasted over two weeks and our youngest was so sick we thought we may have to take her to the ER. I was majorly sleep deprived and we were worn out.
Within weeks we landed at my parents home as we aimed to save up money and secure a deposit for a place to live. During this transition I begin to notice some major changes in myself. I have faced anxiety and depression at different stages of my life, but what I was feeling was beyond what I have dealt with before. The smallest normal day to day acts of life were overwhelming me and causing me to almost completely shut down or fall apart. At this point Brandon was really concerned and suggested I call one of our friends that was a counselor. When I spoke with her, she said it sounded like I was dealing with PTS (post traumatic stress). She said my threshold for stress had reached its max, and the body and mind tends to be affected in this way. That would explain the panic attacks and irrational thoughts that I was having daily and sometimes hourly. I had to majorly take a step back from everything (which is really hard when you are a homeschooling mom of four kids). If I had felt like I was reaching a point of things being too much I would have to stop and rest. This was hard for me, as the tiny bit of structure I had left, with homeschool and some sort of schedule, was changing as well. I'm one of those people that likes to count on the familiar and just the comforts some structure brings. The constant changes of sleeping in different places, living out of suitcases and such were beginning to take their toll on me. I was daily having to "let go" of anything I felt like I had control of in my life, and give it to God. We all were.
All this to say, we are still currently without a home of our own at the moment. But a ray of hope comes again and again. We have had places to stay for weeks and months at a time where people offered us some space in their homes to rest, all by God's quick provision as we did not have to go around knocking on people's doors, it was just offered to us. And, my husband just got a new job recently, after nearly a year of searching and sending out resumes.
We are working out the other details of our life little by little. I am feeling much better now than I was, but I still deal with waves of anxiety and depression from time to time. It's a bit more manageable now, thankfully, as I am learning to know my limits. I'm becoming more okay with taking a few steps back if need be, and knowing when to "let go". All of this, along with some other practical ways to deal with stress and anxiety as naturally as possible have all been helpful. And our family is learning to walk through these things together. Our kids see our (mine and Brandon's) need for God, which in return shows them their need for God as well. He is our Father as well as theirs.
Now why did we have such a major storm of circumstances after months of constant provision? This I don't have the complete answers for, and we might not ever know why. But we are reminded in scripture several times that life is not perfect, but that it is filled with many high points and low points for everyone, no matter who we are. How we respond and what we learn from it is the working out of our faith.
2 Corinthians 4:16 says this:
16 "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
I'm thankful to have a strong husband (and a strong father for our girls) who is not easily shaken and consistently led me away from all the questioning, which is what I tend to do when I don't understand. I try to figure it all out. I tend to analyze and process. It has it's place and it's one of the reasons I'm so detail oriented with certain things, but in times like this sometimes all we can do is breathe in and out to get through one day at a time. There's a lot more practice of letting go of things we can't explain or understand in the moment.
So this is where we are now. We are not fully sure of all the where's, when's, and how's of all of this, and that's okay. Just a few months ago I heard a lady named Heidi Baker share some of her story and she said "If you don't give up, you win." And that seems like a good way to sum up this moment of life. We continue pressing forward because in the end life is about so much more than a job, a bank account, or a home. And when we can really see this, how rich are we?!
My hope is that some of you may read this and feel encouraged to hear that you are not alone. That you are not the only one facing a dark valley. That you are not the only one that gets knocked down by life's circumstances or hardships. BUT our hope is that we know this is not the end. There are seasons of giving and receiving, moving and waiting, running and resting. There is a lot going on all around this world, and our view is just a speck in the grand scheme of life. Whatever season you may be in, be encouraged that this is not the end.
Music is a beautiful gift in our family's life. As our song may grow a bit tired in certain seasons, I am hopeful that a beautiful melody will be made out of all of this. We believe everyone's life is like a song making it's own unique sound as the ups and downs of life are what makes the melody unique. We share with you because this is our story, this is our song. In the end God will be praised.
I will leave you with this old hymn as it keeps coming to mind over these past months.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine;
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood. |
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love. |
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This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
No matter what we are facing....may our song forever be praising God because surely has not left us. He is always with us.
