For several years, I’ve been living on a prayer. “Lord, please sell our house.”
I wanted with all my heart to move my family away from the non-family friendly neighborhood we’d found ourselves in. You see we had a plan. We bought the best out of the worst houses we’d looked at and figured we’d live there for 5-7 years, then we’d move on. When 7 years hit, this girl was ready to go back to the farm.
And so the for sale sign went up. However, as the days went by, my hopes of moving went down.
Almost two years later, our house sold. And our plans changed. After almost a decade and half of yearning to go back to the farm again, I realized I didn’t fit in anymore. Oh, the farm was the same. My family was much the same, but having lived away for so long — I’d changed.
Suddenly, the one place I always dreamed I’d live, wasn’t the place for me or for my family.
Have you ever taken your kids to the grocery store and turned around for a moment? It was only a second, but when you turn back around your child disappears? You experience that fleeting moment of panic before you spy them checking out the cookies down the aisle behind you, right?
And that’s how it felt. Going home to me was always going back to the farm. That was always the dream, my dream. Not Gods, not my kids, not my husband. Mine. That fleeting moment of panic isn’t something we want to feel if we can avoid it. It’s fear.
So do not fear, for I am with you, do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10
I wrote this verse on a sticky note and placed it everywhere I could see it in the last few weeks of preparing to move out of our old home.
As our entire house was packed and placed into a storage unit, my kids looked at me for reassurance in our situation. We didn’t have a new home yet. My dream of returning to the farm was gone. All I did know was that God had a plan for my family.
For all the time we’d been living on the prayer of selling our house, we’re now living on the prayer of finding a new home. We have returned to a familiar place. It’s the one place that felt the most right. We moved to the town where my husband lived when we first met and later lived as newlyweds. It is almost like the completion of a circle for us coming back to the place where our family first started.
Having moved to different states and towns a few times for jobs, it seemed awkward that for once we could take our jobs with us. In the past, the decisions on where to live were made by finding work to provide for our family. Like most loving fathers, God has prepared the way for us. He has given us options and with His gentle hands directed us in the path He wants us to go.
Our dreams may not always be God’s plans, and as my family and I continue to live on that prayer for our new home, I know our future has been secured in God’s hands.
Susan, thank you for the powerful reminder that God’s plans are better than our dreams. Loved the article.