Some thought this would never happen...

Every story has a back story. 

The year was 2003, I had recently graduated from Kansas State University, Dawn was finishing school in St. Louis, and our wedding was being planned for October of the same year. Besides those events in our lives happening, another big adventure was about to start.... a move to a new town. I was going to say foreign land or strange new land, but I did not think it would be too kind to call St. Joseph, Missouri those names. The previous 23 years of my life and Dawns 21 years had taken place mostly in St. Louis, Missouri. We were making this voyage, our own Lewis and Clark Expedition across Missouri, without wagons, fording Rivers and diphtheria, but indulge my imagination for a moment. It still felt like we were heading into the unknown. We only knew 1 family in St Joseph, and we were leaving all our family and childhood friends behind. 

Our life in St. Joseph was short lived, about 18 months later, we took up residence in Kansas City, Missouri. For the next 15 years we would call that home, between a year in an apartment to the next 14 in our, what was way too big for us at the time home.  During this time, we have spent all 15 years attending and very involved in Vineyard Church, working different jobs, creating a nonprofit within our local community, starting our family,

homeschooling our kids, and developing many friendships. We have also experienced great difficulties over the years, which we were thankful for the church and friends to be able to lean on. The relationships and experiences that we had developed within our church were one of the major components that had kept us here in Kansas City. When we ran into our struggles, it would have been an option to pack up and head back to St. Louis, but we never felt compelled to do that. Looking back, it’s obvious to us now why, we had lots of life experiences we needed to complete here. 

Over Thanksgiving 2019, through two different nudging of the Spirit Dawn and I both felt compelled to start a plan and process that would find us moving back towards St. Louis and family. The nudge was brought to me through way of my oldest, and a simple comment he made, that started to change my heart. Dawn felt the nudging during a conversation she was having with family about the kids getting older. On our drive back to Kansas City we started talking about the possibility of moving back to St. Louis and had put a timeline in place that would have us moving back home in no more than three years. 

With our three-year plan set, one of the concerns we had was the

hardships of leaving our church and the friendships we developed there and having to find a new one. Honestly, you would think after all the times I have seen God lead us through decisions and struggles, I should have known he would be like, don’t worry, I got this. (we all know I don’t got this). At the end of May this year, we got what we felt to be confirmation that the time is now for us to leave what had been our church home of 15 years. I reached out to a few pastors and shared with them what was on my heart and let them know our family's decision out of respect for the relationship and dedication we have had to our church. I also needed to resign from leadership over a recently developed ministries of the church. This was now closing a chapter of our lives but was also going to fast forward to the next one. 

I am going to let you in on a secret, I can make all the plans in the world, but it is better to join the ride God has planned for me. What starts as a simple event, our neighbor sharing with us they are going to move, has more depth than we would first realize. When we heard their listing price of their house, our ears perked up. Wait a minute, they are going to list for what? While talking to our other neighbor who is a realtor, we mentioned their listing price and he responded if they get X, you could probably get X+ for yours. Our mouths hit the floor. No way. 

Turning back to prayer we started feeling that maybe we should be looking to move now, not later. In our prayer God showed us that He has blessed me with a flexible job 3 years ago, the flexibility of homeschooling our children, recent closure to our church, and for further confirmation we asked God to allow our neighbor’s house to sell for a particular price (above and beyond their asking price). You would not believe our shock when we got confirmation back on July 13th, about a month ago that our neighbors house sold for the number God had shown us, which has no explanation as to why their house went for that much even our realtor neighbor was shocked at their SOLD price. 

We got it!! God is telling us to move NOW!! So, the list of projects we were planning on finishing over the next few years we were now going to tackle over the next few weeks!! By God’s strength my wife and I were able to complete all the projects by the listing deadline.  

July 19th we were sitting in a church service at a friend's church, without masks, and the pastor was preaching that weekend on Moses. He asked,  

“How many of us have been in a situation that felt impossible, and then God prepares an escape for you, and it isn’t until you walked through it you were able to look back and see God at work, even though I had a hard time in that moment. Knowing that God will guide you through situations good and bad, the question all Christians should be prepared for is, “Will you follow me?” If God is asking you to follow him, he is going to give instructions on what is next, but be prepared for the second half of the question because that is, will you follow me, wherever I lead you.”  

Our situation is not as scary as stories you might read in the Bible, we are not Jonah being told to go to Nineveh where he will surely face death, Moses being asked to confront Pharaoh to lead the people out of slavery, and definitely not being asked to build an ark! We have the benefit of going back to where we have family, old friends, and familiar roads, but we do have uncertainty. We feel God has placed it in our hearts to move back to St. Louis, which if you ask either of our parent’s they never thought they would see that day. What we are not fully aware of yet is, the why. For the last 15 years we have been resolute about not returning, yet something my son spoke to me softened my stance. God has a plan for our family, we are moving forward and excited for what he has planned.  

August 7th at 9:20 am we went live with our house on the market. The family that looked at the house at 3:00 pm that afternoon, bought our house, and we close Sept 24th. 

Since I love to quote great philosophers, I will quote the great Ozzy Osbourne, “Mamma I’m coming home”.

Literally. 

 

Firestorm called Fear...

It is ok in life to be cautious, even take calculated risks. We have all heard the term “overthinking it”, well this can happen in life when we take caution and let it be driven into fear. How can it make the change, and how can it happen so fast?

Fire

The best way to demonstrate how fear can take control is to think of your fireplace. You take the time to properly make sure you fire is built right, get all the right size sticks, some paper, logs, etc. Once you strike that match and light the fire it comes to life. At this point you typically have a pretty controlled fire. What happens once you open the damper below the fire? The controlled fire now becomes a roaring fire and consumes the wood quickly. In the fireplace at home this is a manageable situation, one we can close the damper reduce the air causing the raging fire, but what happens when that fire is out in the world?

Every year it seems we hit a season where wildfires rampage across parts of the globe. What starts sometimes as small as a spark, roars into an uncontrollable inferno engulfing everything in its way. Total destruction and devastation is left behind because what started small got a gust of wind and roared to life. Fire can be extremely useful in our lives, we use it to heat our houses, cook our food, even manufacturer products, but left unattended or blown on, it can cause devastation in our lives.

Fear

Caution turns into fear when like the fire, left unattended or blown on. The source of the wind can come from strangers even close family members, it can even be unintentional by those closest to us. Regardless of where it comes from, it can be crippling. Fear takes control over us, becoming incapable of pushing forward, unable to escape. We become claustrophobic in our own thoughts. Fear though is a liar, it is a tool used to diminish you. We must stop and remember, just like the controlled fire, until an outside force intentionally injected itself into our lives we were ok. It’s not the fire that should cause us to be worried, its whose blowing the wind on our fire we need to look at. The minute we let ourselves become controlled by someone else exerting their force over us we become enslaved to their will.

Good Intentions...

Most of the time we have good intentions when we see another in a place of fear. At the same time what we think is helpful is doing the opposite. In our attempt to have empathy for their situation we ended up speaking words that act as fuel on the fire of fear. Why do we do this, it’s not intentional, its out of a good place. In my own experience, when I was dealing with trying to find work to support my family, I was told about people’s thoughts and prayers. Thoughts like “Don’t worry about what kind of job”, “Trust God, He has a plan for you” or “God’s in Control”. While they are all truth statements, none of that helps ease my fear. The fire is raging at my door, it feels like you just said to me, once the fire is done, I’ll help you rebuild your house. I DO NOT WANT TO HAVE TO REBUILD, I WANT TO STOP IT BEFORE IT GETS HERE!!

What I needed in this moment was the person to do something, not say something. Showing up at my door with a gift card to the grocery store is you coming along side me and saying, “I know you are in a rough spot, but let’s go through this together, I got you.” That is water on the fire, a grocery gift card that gave us peace for a few weeks on how we would feed our family. No one asked us about it, we do not even know who did this, but talk about bringing peace during our time of fear. Someone had a thought of how they could help us, and they acted. They acted in a way that lets us release a fear, but at the same time use their help on our time, our terms. They helped us escape the bondage of our fear, even if just a little, still a move in the right direction. One less thing to speak fear over us.

Steps To Get Out of Fear

1. Be honest with God, yourself and those around you.

First step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, right? Same goes with fear. You must be honest with everyone, let them know. The only way they can begin to help is if they know there is a problem in the first place.

2. Wait & listen

To often in a crisis we make decisions that are made in an irrational state of mind. We feel panicked and that we must do something. That is us trying to solve the problem, we need to get ourselves out of the way of ourselves. We must allow the work to be done around us, but if we are being irrational, those around us won’t even be able to get a pulse on the situation. It’s attempting to help a moving target, and people will just give up and say things like, “I tried to help, but they just really didn’t seem to want it”

3. Evaluate and remain honest

Look at your options around you, what are your choices. Stop and evaluate everything going on, including those you have around you. Get the negative Nancy’s and positive Polly’s out of your inner circle. Honestly, they are not doing you much good. Find people that speak truth, but speak life at the same time. To break the bondage of fear out of your life, you might need to hear some hard truths, but someone walking with you through your fear will understand and be there with you as you fall and need to be picked up.

Fear is a Liar

Fear will make you feel isolated, it will attempt to deceive you into believing you are the only one. It will attempt to convince you that others will judge you. Guess what, your not alone and it doesn’t matter what others might think, they have their own insecurities to deal with if they are judging you. I will be the first one to admit, I Don’t Got This. Life is full of twists and turns, taking one day at a time. I can be cautious about decisions in my life, but no longer is fear allowed to paralyze me from moving forward.

Lastly, even if the fire has burned it all down in your life. The beauty that can rise from the ashes is evidence of a new life starting, going forward from that day. All is not lost, you still have everything in front of you. Have no fear, You Got This…