Living Like It’s True

Our move to Kansas did not go quite how I’d expected.  We’ve been living here for over two months now and there have been many surprises along the way.  The original plan included getting here, closing on our house right away, staying with some friends while we worked on our house to get it ready, and then moving in.  Simple.  All of the details were laid out well in my futuristic-planner-mind.  However, within the first three days of being here, our closing date was pushed back over a month, Ezra began having allergic reactions to our friends’ cats, and I fell down some stairs falling badly on my right foot and putting me in a walking cast for several weeks.  

The original plan had to be revised a lot.  We would need to live unsettled for much longer and we had to find a new temporary place to stay—one without cats.  All of our stuff on the moving truck, including our second car, would now be held in Texas until we closed on the house.  We found so much help and encouragement from our new church community.  What could’ve turned into a chaotic disaster was resolved quickly as our young adult pastor came up with a plan to have us live in a house church about thirty minutes away.  The home is comfortable, unused during the week, and cat free.  

The delays in our house were manageable and so was my hurt foot.  I just continued with life while hobbling around.  But something that was not as easily managed was the emotional adjustment to the move itself. It’s never easy to start all over again, especially when you felt like you were just beginning to feel at home at the place you were previously.  I got hit with another wave of grief over the child we lost last year.  I had this constant feeling that someone was missing from our family and it wouldn’t go away for weeks.  The move was hard on all of us in different ways, but it was especially hard for our daughter, Eden.  There were many days that she would find me alone and cry in my arms over losing her life in California. 

Eden’s sadness broke my heart.  I started questioning whether we’d heard God right and whether He really had wanted us to move.  I had been criticized by some for this move.  Why did we leave our family and our friends?  Why did we leave such an amazing church and pastoral staff?  California could’ve been a place we stayed forever.  Did we make a mistake? As my doubts grew, so did my irritation to all of the other bumps we had.  I started to get very frustrated that my foot was taking so long to heal and I started to feel exhausted by the fact that we were still living out of suitcases.  These difficulties began to affirm my doubts about God calling us here.  I started to miss the blessings of the home we were living in and the amount of help and hospitality that was extended to us. 

One morning I read Luke 1 and was struck by the experience of Zechariah when he was told by the angel Gabriel that he would have a son.  After the angel proclaims this incredible message and tells Zechariah that the thing he’d been praying for for who knows how long was about to happen, Zechariah doubts the message.  The angel responds, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time” (Luke 1: 19-20).  What stuck out to me most was how Zechariah’s doubt affected his life.  His experience in life became limited (couldn’t speak) because of his unbelief in God’s plan that was plainly revealed to him. “Am I living limited too?,” I wondered. 

I looked back on all the ways God spoke to us through Scripture, impressions, answered prayers, and other people about this move, and it was still undeniable.  But I was living as if I wasn’t sure.  And as I lived unsure about His calling, I was also living unsure about His love and care for me.  I wasn’t living full of joy and peace, but rather worry and stress.  I was limiting the abundant life I could have in Christ.  “He called us here and made it so obvious that we wouldn’t doubt it,” I thought, “And if He called us here, this move is a good thing and He will be faithful.  I need to start living as if I believe Him.” 

So I started to pray.  I started to ask God to show up for Eden every day and make it clear that He was with her and that He cared for her.  I didn’t just ask Him, I believed that He would do it.  I was in the middle of reading As Light Lingers by Nina Atcheson.  I received this book as a gift on our first day in Kansas.  It is a small book about the importance of spending time with God each day through Scripture and has lots of practical ways on how to do it.  In one chapter, Nina shares how her family once made a move that was very difficult for their daughter.  But after some time, Nina’s daughter began enthusiastically sharing with her how God had been speaking directly to her broken heart through Scripture in her morning time with Him.  I decided to teach Eden the simplest method in the book for her morning worships of just reading one verse of Scripture.  I continued to pray and live like I believed God would come through.

A few weeks later, things looked much more hopeful.  It was a Tuesday and on Wednesday, we would be closing on our house after a 70-day closing, and on Thursday our things would arrive from the movers.  That Tuesday in particular had been a long day of caring for the kids and I was finally about to take a shower, when Eden hopped into the room that I was trying to leave.  

“Hi Mommy!” she beamed.  She had caught me alone as Nick had taken the boys to play.  I thought Eden had gone with them.

“Hey Eden,” I said, trying to sound cheerful as the dread that this might turn into a long conversation grew.  

“I have something really important to tell you,” she said.  I almost told her that now was not a good time because I really wanted to take a shower and have a break from all the little people, but I knew deep inside that this was more important.  

“I think God has changed me through this move to Kansas,” she said seriously.  I was speechless for a few seconds.  

“Really? Tell me more about that,” I said as I got comfortable in my seat.  

“Well, remember how I used to have trouble with lying?  I can’t remember the last time I’ve lied.  And before we moved here I wasn’t really sure if God was real.  I just felt like the stories in the Bible couldn’t have been real and I didn’t like reading the Bible either.  I just read it because I thought I was supposed to.  But now I know that God is real and I love reading my Bible,” she said with a smile on her face.  

“Eden, this is amazing!  Why do you think this all happened?” I asked.  

“Well, every morning when I woke up, I would think about how much I missed California and I would just cry and tell God about it.  And I would have my worship like you taught me to.  Each time I did this, I really felt like God was with me and that He cared about me.  I started to ask Him to lead me when I wasn’t sure what to do about certain things, and He would lead me.”  Eden continued telling me more about her transformation and my heart was bursting as I heard every prayer I prayed fulfilled.  

“Oh and Mommy,” she said meekly, “I waited to tell you this today because I wanted you to have three special days in a row.  Today I am telling you this special thing about me, tomorrow we are closing on our house, and the day after that our stuff is coming!”

The struggles are not over.  Our house has a lot more issues on it than we knew so we still haven’t moved in and we are still adjusting to life here. But I am choosing to believe that God called my family to move here.  He didn’t promise that it would all be easy, but He did promise that it would be good for all five of us.  I am not letting my life be robbed of joy and peace.  He has used the struggles so far to sort out some of my doubts and some of Eden’s too, ones that I didn’t even know she had.  And I pray to continue walking (or hobbling) through my life believing what He says is true.

**Eden wanted me to share this story in my blog for all of you to read.  She has determined that she does not want to die until she has shared Jesus with the world.