When we felt the Lord nudging our hearts to move we had no idea how this journey would all play out, where we would end up, or the path the Lord would pave before us to get us here.
When you look up the word Faith you may get many definitions and a few I stumbled across were:
Faith (noun)- Firm belief in something for which there is no proof: complete trust. Strong belief or trust in someone or something.
What some would call "faith", I proclaimed as crazy....
Crazy (adjective)-Full of cracks or flaws: unsound. being out of the ordinary: unusual
Yep...this plan, this unavoidable urge that began above a sink full of dirty dishes....this wasn't faith, this was most certainly crazy.
But in the midst of the crazy we found the faith to move mountains.
Grab a snack, get yourself a cup of whatever and put your feet up......this promises to be awesome!
In just a month and a half we went from a nudge in our hearts to full fledged crazy faith.....quitting jobs, packing up our home-the only home our babies have known, saying heart wrenching good byes, bidding farewell to a church we prayed constantly for during the first three years of our marriage, and trekked back to a place neither of us have ever wanted to live...and I was certain I would never call home again.
Hello Florida!!!!
This journey was hands down the worst trip ever! Literally just a few short minutes into our trip a crate fell over on Bella and Ezra leaving them covered in canned goods and broken glass. Panicked, I pulled over to the side of the road to rescue my screaming baby and terrified dog from a bloody disaster I just knew was bound to result. After tossing things on the side of the road and insuring I had every broken piece of glass cleaned up I safely buckled myself up and prepared to meet my beloved at the gas station where he was patiently waiting for me.....only to discover the torrential rains from the past two days (that only seemed to appear when we tried to load the moving truck) had softened my patch of grass into a slight mud pit and I was officially stuck in the ditch......most certainly waiting to just roll over because I just knew the van was slowly tilting into disaster.
But!
But the Lord knew...
Waiting at the gas station was also a stranger with a sensitive heart....and a massive truck...that just happened to have a tow strap thing (think Jurassic Park where the big guy gets stuck in the rain and wraps the wire thing around a tree to help himself out before all the creepy dinosaurs spit poison in his eyes.....that thing!!). This gentleman came to my rescue and pulled us out of the muddy ditch....not to mention best friends hubby coming to make sure I was okay (hero!).
I will save you from the dreadful details of how a simple 7 hour trip took us a mind numbing 17 HOURS!!! I never want to repeat it....seriously!
But!
Just for you Best Friend!!!
We made it!! Only to literally drive into another mishap of this journey....by this point there was literally only two options....cry or laugh....usually I cry, its true...we all know it. However, we chose to laugh because only the Lord could orchestrate the insanity headed our way over the next couple hours.
When we reserved our Uhaul truck we also reserved our storage unit....I called a week in advance to make sure everything was lined up and exactly what we had asked for, I even spoke to the manager to save myself a sure fire headache when we arrived. Sure enough, we get here and the storage unit we reserved doesn't even exist!! Are you kidding me?! After going over everything with the manager all he had to say was...."well, what do you want me to do? We got you a unit". Yes sir, you sure did.....after you had to put us in an inside unit-which we specifically didn't want, and charged us after hours fees-which were supposed to come with the rental and was why we chose your place over all the other ones. If that wasn't bad enough the workers were so rude, kept telling us two different things, and the lot was so small it would only lead to more disasters.
After Grant was told to maneuver the truck out of the way so people could pass by he had to try and get around all of the other trucks parked all over the lot and he accidently ran into another truck.....I died! I seriously think I stopped living in that moment! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! All I could think is "you are physically hitting another Uhaul truck in this moment.....I mean, truck against now jacked up car tow dolly thing...and there is no turning back because the truck physically cant fit through the tiny space in which they told you you had to go" Dead, I am dying!
But!
But the Lord knew.....there is a reason you marry a man who doesn't skimp on insurance! The entire episode was covered (by episode I totally mean BILL). This is also the reason the Lord blessed me with the calmest man that must exist on the face of the planet!! He literally got out of the truck, inspected his path, and trekked on until the truck was where it needed to go and never said anything....I am not even sure he blinked...meanwhile they were busy resuscitating me.
By now we just had to take a day to recover....but we so don't roll that way so we got to searching for a place to live. Grant had a couple job interviews to get to and I had been in touch with a place to live. We had been praying the Lord would provide both a job and a place to live in the first two weeks.....mainly so as to not inconvenience family, we didn't want to endure transitioning the boys to another house, and with a job soon we wouldn't miss out on too many checks for financial reasons.
But!
But the Lord knew....Grant was offered two different jobs in the first few days, and we were anxiously waiting to hear back from the place to live. After praying and weighing the pros and cons of each job Grant went with the job that was similar to what he was previously doing....huge PRAISE!! Within minutes of getting the call that Grant could start work on Tuesday the phone rang and we found out we also got the place to rent we were hoping for. Only about 15 minutes from Grants new job, it was on the opposite side of town we were thinking we wanted to be but fit everything else we were praying for :)
No one else could have orchestrated things in such a beautiful way that through every single trial we have faced on this journey the end result was something bigger and better than we could have planned for ourselves. More than I even dared to imagine for us.
There is something so priceless about knowing you are doing exactly what the Lord asked of you even though it may not make sense to anyone else....even to other believers.
I remember Grant and I talking about those that stepped out in faith in the bible before this move, mostly because I was panicking haha, and I remember mentioning Abraham....he just went, he didn't even know where he was going! All he received was the word to "Go" and he went....no "so God, I have been traveling for a bit now you think you may clue a dude into whats up ahead" or "umm....I passed Go a few miles back...should I be collecting that $200 now"....seriously, nothing. I am so thankful for a direction....we knew exactly where the road would lead and we knew it wouldn't be a lonesome journey.
I must admit that now that we are here I have anxiously been asking "now what?" I have no answer for that as of yet I just know that this is where we are for now....I don't know how long "now" is, but I know I want to soak up all that the Lord has for us in this moment.
What some would call "faith", I proclaimed as crazy.....
And this journey is crazy...it is full of cracks and flaws and far from the ordinary but with complete trust in the Lord to guide us we found an even deeper faith, a faith I didn't know I possessed. A faith that moved mountains when we only saw obstacles, a faith that proved to us that God has got this every step of the way, a faith that reminds us He knows our hearts better than we do.
A crazy faith.....and I couldn't imagine it being any other way :)
