Well...I am pretty certain this is the longest period of time I've gone without writing a blog post since I started this blog nearly 7 years ago. I'm a slacker, and I've thought about posting several times over the past year and a half, but I haven't. The reason I'm posting tonight is because after talking with one of my very best friends this evening, she told me that I really needed to write in my blog. So here I am!
The reason I called this friend tonight is because I had a freak out moment earlier. Two years after selling our house and downsizing...TWO YEARS later...it hit me tonight how completely crazy what I did was and how there's literally no other way to explain how everything went down other than by God's grace, provision and mercy. I literally JUST realized how much I TOTALLY surrendered to God. I didn't just surrender my own will to Him, I surrendered my entire family, our finances...EVERYTHING to Him. This whole situation could have turned out SO differently.
So, I was thinking about how this happened. This full and complete surrender and trust of myself, my family, my finances, my life to Jesus. My friend admitted to me tonight that she (and apparently several other of our mutual friends) thought I was absolutely CRAZY when I told them that I felt God was telling me to sell my house. They (and I) knew it was a seller's market then (still is) and they knew I had been sick and that I hadn't been working and that I had no idea what the next step was after selling our house. When I think about this now, it sends shivers down my spine. Hear me, people (all 2 of you who read my blog)...I had NO CLUE what was going to happen after we signed the contract to sell our house. Not only did I have no clue what was going to happen, but I talked my husband into following along with this idea (thankfully I put that into God's hands as well because he was totally not on board). I convinced my boys it was the right thing to do and that I felt that God was calling me to do this. Hear me again...these are 3 people in my life who either DO NOT believe in God or who have very wavering faith that is doubtful and leary of God being real and/or being good.
Ok, let's back up a moment - because I really want to somehow convey my thoughts and my testimony here. I am hopeful that maybe, someone will read this one day and feel called to total surrender as well (not necessarily in the same way I was, of course, but called to turn their common sense and faith over blindly to God). I also want to make sure I convey this so that I will NEVER forget how faithful God is, and if I EVER start to doubt or waiver, I can go back to this and remember.
I don't know if the order of operations here is the same for everyone, but this is how total surrender happened for me: 1) I was LISTENING to God...reading, in His word, still, quiet etc. 2) I felt CONVICTED by God to give something up - something I absolutely positively NEVER wanted to give up. 3) I was WILLING to obey, even though I was sick, the timing seemed to really SUCK and again, it was something I did NOT want to do. 4) I TOLD others about what I felt God was convicting me to do, even though I knew they would think I was CRAZY. 5) I PRAYED that God would make a way if this was really what He wanted me to do. 6) I TRUSTED Him to make it work out, even though it seemed impossible. 7) I DID THE WORK that it took to follow through with everything. Even when God parted the Red Sea, the Jewish people had to walk through it, trusting Him - not knowing what would happen, where they would end up or if it would work out. Just as they made it to the other side, I/we did too. We got a home less than a mile from our old house. We have enough room for all of us (tight, yes, but enough). We have a garage (that I can't park in yet but one day...), a deck (that I love to sit on and have quiet time with God), a big back yard (we have a DOG now because of the big fenced yard), we are paying half of what our mortgage was before on a home equity loan that we used to pay off other debt AFTER buying this home outright in cash from the sale of our other home (WHAT?)...no one had to change schools...we didn't end up in a trailer park (which by the way, I was willing to do...not so much the husband). But on the other side of the Red Sea, the Jewish people had 40 years of wandering in the desert before they got to enter the promised land. I'm not saying we're wandering around, but we've had our fair share of issues since moving in. It hasn't all been a cake walk!
Here's something else amazing about all of this. I didn't know at the time that I was going to continue to have health issues for more than a year after this move. I was on short term disability for much of that time, but that only paid 60% of my "base" pay, which was not even close to what I actually made as a home health nurse because I was paid "per visit" and my disability was based on my hourly rate which was significantly less than my per visit rate. All this to say - we would have ended up losing our house. We would have been FORCED to move. We may have either sold it for whatever we could get for it out of desperation, or we would have had it foreclosed on by the bank because we could not have kept up paying the mortgage and all of our other bills with me not working for that long.
I am just in shock tonight about all the ways that God worked in and through this whole situation. I'm in shock that I blindly obeyed Him without having a single clue what the next step would be. I'm in shock that every time I told Him that if this is what He wanted, He would have to make a way - and He DID. I'm in shock that He knew if I didn't obey Him, we would end up losing our home in a very devastating way. It was already hard enough to give up our house in the way we did, but to be forced out would have been so heartbreaking, embarrassing and depressing. I'm just in shock that I was so willing to obey Him that I basically lost my ever loving mind for a time. Finally, I'm shocked that several of my church friends KNEW that I was completely crazy to do what I did...but let me do it anyway, not saying a word about how insane of an idea it was to sell my house without a plan of where we would end up, while I was sick...because they knew if they told me, it might cause me to falter in my obedience. They just sat by, knowing that God is capable of more than we could ever ask or imagine, and watched the whole thing unfold.
God, I can't say that I fully understand You, but I can say that I fully trust You. You are good, You are faithful, You know what's best for me even when it seems completely insane to me (and those around me). You know what I need before I do. You make a way. You part the seas and ask me to walk through and trust You. I don't ever want to forget the way this situation worked out when I completely surrendered to You, Jesus. I don't ever want to lose my blind faith in You. Thank You for being MY Savior and MY King! Praise You now and forever! Amen!
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