Our Life Right Now

This weekend I spent some time going through some old posts of mine on the blog. I absolutely LOVE having this blog and using it to keep a journal of our lives and what is going on. I went through old posts and got a little sad thinking about our sweet apartment that I hated so much, and how thankful I am that I have pictures of us from that season of our life. We made that apartment our home, regardless of the fact that we wanted to be in a house so badly at that time.

Having an online journal is similar to a prayer journal. I go back through different seasons of our life and I can see where we were, how far we have come, what God has done. Ways in which we surrendered to him, or sometimes held on to something stubbornly, only to later surrender and watch him provide.

And now we find ourselves in another season of life, our current chapter.

Sometimes it's weird how life can change drastically, something will take you by complete surprise, yet looking back you see how maybe, just maybe, God was preparing you for this time. Unfortunately, last week we found out that Luke no longer has an income at his current job.

It is a long and VERY confusing story, and to be honest, 10 years down the road I'm not sure if I will care about all the details. In fact some of them may cause bitterness, or hurt, or just anger and there is no need to keep record of those things to later dwell on.

The black and white of it is that our church where we have served and ministered for 6 years is unfortunately no longer able to pay it's staff. It is a sad situation and one that has caused us to ask questions after questions after questions.

But as I stated in a previous post, answers are not what we need right now. This is a time that we can learn to trust and rely on God.

It is easy to say you live a life of faith, and trust, and thanks. But do you really live those things when the ground below you is shaking and everything that you knew as "stable" is now a big fat question mark?

I can honestly say that throughout this whole experience we have felt nothing but peace. A peace that can only come from our God.

You see, our Hope is not in money, or stability. We live a life where we strive to be content no matter what the circumstances are, and that applies in ALL situations.

Now I am not naive. I know that it takes money to live, but lately we have gotten used to a whole lot of "wants" and a very few "needs".

Strangely, I have begun to see this time as a blessing. So many times in life I spend money on frivolous things.

Do I really need the fanciest nursery furniture? No.

Do I really need to stop at Starbucks every single day just because its red cup season and I can get my beloved peppermint mocha? No.

Do I really need to buy an ENTIRE new wardrobe of maternity clothes, because I don't want to wear the same clothes over and over while pregnant? No.

I could go on and on but I think the moral of my story is that God is teaching me to be dependent on Him and not money.

And even though we have peace about it all, it's still a bit of a nerve-wracking time. So many things are up in the air, but we also know that it will be ok.

And we will use this time to learn.

Honestly we are thankful. We have SO much to be thankful for, we have amazing families, amazing friends who have committed to praying for us through this season, a sweet Baby Tree on the way, a beautiful home, and even neighbors who mow our yard! :-) We are thankful.

And really, there are so many people going through so much worse. Losing an income is not even close to horrible in our opinion. It's just the "unknown" that is stressful, but we know we will see the other side soon.

So that is our life right now. It's all apart of our journey and I wanted to be sure and record it.