Never a Dull Moment

Of course, it is his "write" hand!

Israel broke his first bone.

When he did it, boy did he moan!

He was riding his bike

Doing stunts and the like

Now his thumb’s in the cast that is shown.

Low Down on Relo Part 5: Prayer

What I failed to mention in my previous post explaining how God directed us to Ohio, was the vast amounts of prayer that were involved. Not only did Jason and I pray like we had never prayed before as a couple, but the pastors in MD prayed, our parents prayed, Jason’s grandmother prayed, dear friends from Chesapeake prayed, and the people at Covenant of Grace prayed. In about 45 minutes a group of ladies will gather at grace house to pray for the church. We may not know until eternity what kindness these women have done for us through their prayers.

Easy-Peezy Sugared Walnuts

I love sugared walnuts in my salads, so when I found out you could do them in the microwave in about five minutes, I had to pass the info. on.

2 cups walnuts

1 cup brown sugar

1 T water

Mix it together and set your microwave on high for 5 minutes. Be sure to stir after each minute. The concoction is going to look liquidy first, then thicken up, finally it will have crystals and look like the sugared walnuts you get in a restaurant.

Spray a sheet of aluminum foil with Pam and spread the walnuts on it to cool.

voila! good enough to make a salad more like dessert.

Low Down on Relo Part 4: Discerning God’s Will

I mentioned before that one of the lessons we learned in the process of deciding whether, when, and where to go was broadening our concept of discerning God’s will beyond the usual approach. It wasn’t an open door closed door; red light, green light; wet fleece, dry fleece kind of experience. In His kindness, God directed us through the godly counsel of those around us as well as His Word. Many times I just wished God would make it obvious, give us some kind of subjective burden for a geographic location, prophetic words from a stranger, or even just make the process smooth, clear and easy. He didn’t do that for us. He used the combination of need (a church near Akron needed a senior pastor) + inclination (Jason had a desire to be sent from CCC and serve as a senior pastor) + counsel (from family, friends, and pastors) + consensus (the Sovereign Grace Leadership team as well as the pastors around us agreed that Jason could be a good fit for this church) + risk (on our part and the church’s part in Akron)+ faith (God is big enough to use insignificant people like us for His glory in MD or in OH)= Reyes family leaves beloved Chesapeake Community Church to serve at Covenant of Grace Church in Copley, Ohio. This process for us required more faith than we expected it to. Silly us.

Now that we’re here, it seems so obvious that this is the perfect fit for us. And I suspect that during times when it may get difficult, although mercifully it has been a very smooth transition, Jason and I will be glad that we didn’t base our decision on something changing and fallible like a mere feeling/desire, prophetic word, or even just a smooth path. We are confident that God used the combination He did so that we would anchor our confidence in Him regardless of what may come.

I think for myself personally, I wanted everything to be obvious and line up perfectly. I did not want any sense of risk to be involved. What if we get there and we fail? I have never been more than five miles away from every extended family member. What if I have an emotional breakdown? Jason has never preached every week. He has only known ministry in the context of a rather large team. What if he couldn’t do the whole senior pastor thing? With what this was costing us emotionally to leave beloved family, friends, church was it worth it to risk it all only to fail?! Jason and I both had to come to a place where we could say the gospel was worth not just taking a risk, but worth risking failure. We came to believe that even if we were to fail miserably, we were still willing to make the attempt for the sake of the gospel (a phrase I will talk about more in a different post, Lord willing), and trust that God would still be glorified….which is never failure, but always sweet and guaranteed success.

As many as are reading this who have relocated, that is how many different ways God directed and guided you. What is your story? Let me know in the comments, or if you write on your blog, let me know and I’ll link to you.

Linky Loo: on relo and homeschool

I really enjoyed reading this wise post Desiree wrote about relocating.

I also loved Tara‘s perspective on homeschooling. I especially liked how she articulated what didn’t motivate her to homeschool. Read about it here. Thank you, Tara, for your excellent example of having a heart for the lost.

Low Down on Relo Part 3: The Tightrope Girl

Here is a poem(thanks to Zoanna’s suggestion) I wrote that attempts to describe my experience of being suspended between two places.

A tightrope stretched between

Two skyscraping towers called

Known and Unknown

She stands at the top

Toes to the edge

He says Go

Shaky foot

Thumping heart

Heavy boxes on her back

She sets foot to wobbly wire.

One inch forward

Straining thighs

Sweating brow

Panic

Re-composure

Two more inches

A box drops

Don’t look down

Don’t look back

Don’t look too far ahead

Her foot slips

She screams

She falls

And underneath

She finds

The Everlasting Arms

The Low Down on Relo part 2: The Journey Is A Destination

The journey itself, the process of moving from point A to point B, has lessons of its own. God gave Jason wisdom early on that there were special lessons the Lord wanted to teach us that would be unique to the actual process of moving. It was such a temptation to just want to survive that uncomfortable season of suspension between two places, but God faithfully used that time to reveal things about us and more importantly things about Him.

The overarching lesson we were learning was to put our trust in God, not in circumstances or people or ourselves. This is a lesson we will learn for the rest of our lives, but there was something uniquely intense about it during the time before we actually moved. A constant tutor for me was worry, fear, and anxiety. I would lay awake at night in a cold sweat sometimes thinking thoughts like, Is this God’s will? Can Jason do this whole senior pastor thing? Will our house ever sell? Will my kids be traumatized? What will I do without my family? Will the church in Maryland understand? How will the church in Ohio receive us? I call worry, fear, and anxiety my tutor because it was teaching me where I was functionally placing my hope and peace. Often it was in Jason, my family, favorable circumstances, or the favor of man. And I was learning where I wasn’t placing my hope: in the all-powerful, all-wise, and yet ever compassionate Savior.

There are a host of sub-lessons God was teaching us during the time preceding the move. Here are just a few:

God was broadening our understanding of how to determine God’s will for our lives. This wasn’t a red light, green light; open door, closed door; wet fleece, dry fleece kind of experience for us. I may write more about this in another post.

God was teaching us to depend more on His Word for comfort and counsel when the people close up to us either don’t know about the move yet, or are struggling themselves with the idea of our leaving. My usual go-to people couldn’t be objective enough at times to be helpful to me. Therefore, I had an urgency of needing to hear from God through His Word that I hadn’t had for a long time.

Waiting well glorifies God. I’m sad to say that I did not wait well. I was very impatient. I was impatient about the sale of our home in particular. I hate to say that in my pride and arrogance I felt that because I was doing this big huge thing for God, He owed me the easy sale of the house. I wanted to just enjoy the last couple of months I lived in MD. I didn’t want to be racing around cleaning for a showing. I didn’t want to experience the roller coaster ride that selling a home took me on. Show the house, wait for the realtor to call with feed back, hope for contract, no contract, disappointment, vague sense of rejection (I don’t know why it feels so personal when people don’t want your house). And yet, if only I had trusted God, I would have saved myself such anguish. All along He knew that if my house sold any sooner, or any later I wouldn’t be living in the amazing home I’m in now. Even our realtor knew it was miraculous that we got this house for the price we did. What is most mind boggling about this is not that I have this great house, it is that even though I would say my wait was characterized by impatience and pride, God still mercifully chose to bless me!!! I don’t understand it! How extravagant is our God with His blessings on undeserving children. So maybe even not waiting well glorifies God because it shows forth His mercy and grace.

There were good days and bad days while we waited to move. But everyday was the same in that we received so much grace. A good day meant grace to trust God and be patient as He guided us from one moment to the next. A bad day meant grace in the form of forgiveness for our sins and fresh gratitude for the saving work of Jesus Christ.

I knew when I decided to write about relocating that it would be an exercise in frustration. I simply can’t express myself well enough with regard to how God has used the time between our previous destination and our future destination to teach us lessons about who we really are and who He really is.

What about you? What “destinations” did God have in mind while you were journeying between two places? Or, if you are in this season now, what is God teaching you?

The Low Down on Re-lo

Relocating. It’s the story of my life these days. I want to write some memoirs of my experiences for my own benefit and maybe for the benefit of other ladies who find themselves leaving one place for another. We are all different, so the experience of relocating will vary from person to person. I’d love to hear from any of you who have been there, done that. And I’d really love to hear from any of you who are right smack in the middle of a relocation.

I have sat down to write about this move from Maryland to Ohio so many times and don’t know where to begin. Do I start with the time Jason came home from work and showed me what would end up being a life-altering email from Dave Harvey about Jason’s potential future? Do I start with the conversation with my parents at Red Lobster when my mom sat beside my dad, brave but pale faced as they told us we were beginning the process of sending Jason out from Chesapeake to serve in another location? Do I go all of the way back to the moment I believe God placed in my twelve-year-old heart faint echoes of “Here am I, Send me.”?

I don’t know where to start, but I do know that the theme of any post I write giving the low down on relocating is that through the excitement and the fears, through the lessons and the losses, through the victories and the defeats, God has been so faithful. I marvel when I consider His faithfulness, patience, grace, mercy and compassion through this experience. He has sent us, and in the process, He is revealing Himself to us in a way that I will never capture in a blog post. But somehow, I really do want to try.

Book Review: Contentment by Lydia Brownback

Whether you are in a season that allows for lengthy devotional times with the Lord, or are struggling to get five minutes in, this devotional is for you. Contentment, A Woman’s Adornment , the second in the series of On-the-Go Devotionals by Lydia Brownback, is small enough to fit in your purse, but substantive enough to feed your soul.

format. The book begins with an introduction that sets the trajectory for the thirty-two devotional readings that follow. Each reading begins with a short passage of scripture and is followed by a one and a half to two page explanation/application of that passage of scripture.

audience. One thing I really appreciate about Lydia’s writing is her breadth of application. She doesn’t speak primarily to moms, or to single ladies, or to empty nesters, she speaks to all seasons and experiences of womanhood. She gives examples and illustrations that apply to my life as a mom, as well as the working woman; the single girl as well as the grandmother.

themes. While cultivating the quality of contentment would be the primary theme in this book, Lydia develops it in a variety of ways. She addresses the connection between happiness and contentment. She exposes the false sources of contentment. And most importantly, she skillfully directs us to the source of our true joy, happiness, contentment: our Savior, Jesus Christ.

sample. Any of you who know me will know why I found this day’s worth of reading particularly meaningful. I will just give the verse and a few excerpts from the day titled There’s No Place Like Home.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. Hebrews 11:8

…home is much more than the place in which we live. Home is people and routine and familiarity and refuge. Home is where we fit; it’s a sense of belonging. Home is the God-ordained anchor for the rhythm of earthly life…

…When we are the ones to leave [home] we find that the excitement of our new adventure fades quickly, and once it does, homesickness so easily creeps in. We miss our family. We miss our friends. We miss our church. We miss the familiarity. We miss the unconditional acceptance. There’s isolation in the pressure we feel to hide who we really are until we know people well enough to let our guard down. There’s strangeness in having to rely on MapQuest to get, well, everywhere…

…Contentment comes when we discover that home is much more about where we are going than where we have come from. Home is about the people of God more than about our families on earth. But that doesn’t mean we must do without the blessings of home in the here and now. Here is God’s promise: ‘Father of the fatherless and protector of the widows is God in his holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home.’ (ps. 68:5-6a)

We can have contentment of home right now, wherever we are, because home for us is wherever God has us. In fact, home is more than this – home is Christ who unites us to God our Father. In this home alone can we find contentment because it is the only home that we will never have to leave. (from pages 37-39).

This represents the depth of insight and wisdom that permeates each reading of Lydia Brownback’s devotional Contentment, A Christian Woman’s Adornment. I am grateful that God has given Lydia Brownback the gift and inclination to write a book that will encourage women in all circumstances and seasons to find their joy and contentment in Christ alone.

Help! I Have Writer’s Block

We have had a very busy summer here in Ohio. Between playground playgroup, cookouts, graduation parties, out of town guests, and the everyday crazy that is life around here, I haven’t had much time for writing. Now I’m out of the habit and am finding hard to get back onto the blogging bandwagon.

I have so many ideas in my head, but can’t seem to get them onto the page/post.

I would love to hear suggestions as to what you do to get over your writer’s block. Please, help a fellow blogger out here.