There are so many emotions in this, that I am going to keep it on the positive side in this blog. But please know, there is definitely some heart break when it comes to leaving my family and friends.
Several people had mentioned maybe God was giving us a choice. This entire time if there was a door open in Peoria, I took it. This past week was no exception. Ray and I had the opportunity to go look at a house for rent last Thursday morning. We had really been praying that if we weren't supposed to be in Peoria, doors would stay closed, but as we left my brother's to go to the house we got a phone call saying that the people who viewed it before us rented it. I physically felt my heart break. I scrambled onto Craigslist and called a different house owner to set up a viewing. I was desperately praying, "Please God, just let this one be the one. Please let this be an open door," even though I knew it wasn't going to happen. It didn't even take us entering the house before I knew my answer. God was sending us to Kansas.
The rest of the trip I cried on and off and couldn't bring myself to tell people we had made our decision. Because I knew once I finally said it, that was it. But praise Jesus for a Godly husband who kept my heart where it was supposed to be.
I had been praying this entire time to not be a Jonah. For my friends who aren't Christians, Jonah is a person in the Bible who was being sent to a town called Nineveh. He refused, but God made sure he went. I didn't want to be a Jonah. If God was sending me, I didn't want to fight Him. I wanted to say what we say at the end of every church service, "Here am I! Send me!" (Isaiah 6:8) But as you can tell from my desperate prayers, it took a whale to get me to agree on Kansas. (Jonah was swallowed by a whale... It's a great story! You should check it out!)
So here I am. Sitting in the car, realizing I am Jonah, and my mind starts to think about all of the people who had told me, "God could be giving you a choice! He will bless you either way!" What if they were right? What if I made my own door by just choosing Peoria? Choosing my own free will over what I felt I was supposed to do? Well then I wouldn't just be Jonah. I would be Eve.
In the beginning, God created paradise. We're talking complete and utter perfection. And He gave it all to His finest creation, mankind. But as you know, Eve decided to choose her own will, and, urging her husband to join her, they lost God's will. His good, pleasing, and perfect will.
Now I am not saying Kansas is going to be perfect. I already know it isn't. They have tornadoes. But what I am saying, is God has paved the way for us to have His will, and judging from what Adam and Eve had in the beginning, I am going to believe that it is pretty spectacular. Peoria is my apple. It is my will. It is what I want. Does that mean if I chose it that God wouldn't care for us? No. God blessed Adam and Eve with clothing, shelter, food, and children, and I believe we would be blessed had we decided on Peoria. However, I can't help but wonder how much more lavishly will we be blessed for choosing God's will over our own. I don't want my will. I want God's will. That's what being a Christian after God's heart is about.
But I still feel ridiculous. I actually asked Ray, "What am I supposed to tell people when they ask why we are going to Kansas. 'Well, the truth is, I don't want to be here, but this is where God is sending me?'" YES! Because that's the truth. While there are so many blessings that I can already see from choosing Kansas, the reason we chose Kansas is because that is where God is sending us.
I feel a bit like Noah, the guy who built a huge boat to prepare for a flood when it had never even rained all because God told him to, and it takes me a minute to accept the fact that I sound crazy to those who don't believe in Christ before I tell them our story. Let's just say I know at least one reason why God is sending us. We have more for our testimony. We have an open door to witness, to encourage, and to share what Christ is doing in our lives.
I am so blessed and encouraged by seeing God's handiwork all over His plans for our lives. And I am beyond blessed to have a husband who is stronger than Adam when it comes to following God's will over our own. (He's a rock. I've tried everything. Offering the best sex every day for the rest of his life. Asking if he'd be willing to just endure whatever bad things came out of Peoria. Begging. Pleading. Nothing. There is no moving that man. And I thought for sure I'd win him with the sex!... Anyway!)
I'm just blessed. To have my family and friends who have been relentlessly praying for us, to have a husband who seeks to serve the Lord, and to have church families who have guided and shaped us along the way into a Godly couple seeking to serve the Lord, following His will over ours.
For I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I! Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
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