For anyone who truly knows me in depth knows that patience is not a virtue of mine. I’ve never been patient!
I remember as a kid not being patient with waiting and my impatience has just intensified as I’ve aged. But the Lord has continuously filled my life with lessons of testing my patience and teaching me to be patient. I think my patience is highly tied to my need for control. Let’s face it, being patient means waiting for something or someone out of your time frame or control. So this just puts me over the edge sometimes. It’s my sin and area of life I definitely need to improve upon.
It’s so unhealthy to want to control every single aspect of life and really it’s simply impossible and nuts to try. But I’m being honest here and this is very difficult for me. I don’t know if it ties back to my crazy, chaotic life as a child where I absolutely had no control of any aspect of my life. I guess I really tried to become in charge of my life and in control when I was in high school and determined to get good grades and scholarships so I could get out of my home situation and hometown to better myself. I was over-the-top driven and continued to be so as I lived my adult life…and made sure that I was in charge. I guess that’s how I felt safe. But really thinking you can be in control of everything is so unrealistic and really only leads to heavy disappointments. Life is not perfect and will not go the way you plan, no matter how well you plan or how great your intentions are.
So guess what God did? Since the beginning of my marriage 23 years ago, he started designing my life in such a way to be so unpredictable and ever changing, totally out of my control. Why? To teach me patience and show me that I am not in control and that I have to put my total trust in Him and show that HE is the one in total control. You would think that by now I would have learned or get it, but no.
The beautiful thing is that when I finally let go of control in a situation and let “God take the wheel” it turns out amazingly…much better than anything I could have ever imagined in my head or planned out on paper. So I’m not sure why I don’t automatically do this at the age of 43. I still struggle. Oh I would say that in general over the years I have improved (at times) with my patience, but I still have a long way to go.
We moved to North Carolina in June of 2017 filled with hopes and dreams that we would have wonderful experiences as a family and as individuals as Brian fulfilled a new career experience. We had so many expectations on what it would be for us and it didn’t quite turn out the way we planned. It was full of disappointments and hardships. But as we look back on our experiences here, we see that God had different plans for us than what we thought. There were lots of heartbreaks and tears. But we grew as a family unit tremendously; we are a much tighter family unit and there have been a lot of healing amongst our relationships. Brian was home more than he has ever been since our children were born and that has been a huge gift. We had so many family adventures and travels and that was so special. We each grew as individuals through hardships and tribulations and became better people despite them. We became tougher and stronger. We discovered that there’s more to us than we what we knew we had in us. Sometimes we were knocked down, but we got back up and kept going. Personally this time here was one of mental and physical healing; I was able to take time off of working outside of the home and just focus on me and my family. God knew that my teenagers were really going to need all of my support and focus.
On a side note, our teens really now have a great perspective on our country’s issues of race relations and are better citizens of this great nation because they have lived it. They no longer need people to tell them…they know their truth because they have lived it and have excellent perspective and will be great citizens of this great nation to speak the truth about it. They never would have had this experience had we stayed on the West Coast and this has made them better people for life as a result.
At the end of last May it was decided that our teenagers were not going to be able to finish another school year here. They had been warriors here for an entire school year and it simply was too much to ask them to stay another entire school year. So as a family we decided that they would complete only one more semester for the 18-19 school year. Not knowing what this may look like for our family and Brian’s career, we decided that at the end of the first semester in the middle of January 2019, the kids and I would move back to Gig Harbor with or without Brian. That meant a bunch of unknowns…scary for this momma who likes to have everything laid out in a plan and be in control…no idea where we would live, when Brian would be moving back, how we would get our worldly possessions back with us, would we fly or drive cross country, and how finances would play out. There were times that I would wake up in the middle of the night in a panic. Other times, I was perfectly at peace and trusting God…after all, there was nothing I could do.
Then the beginning of the school year began and for reasons I’m not going to get into, our 18 year old son needed to go back to Gig Harbor to complete his Senior year of high school and in less than 24 hours the decision was made to fly him home. We had so many amazing friends who offered to let him live with them until January. We are so blessed by all of you! It was the toughest decision Brian and I have made, but it was the right one.
Well, just like our amazing God is, He had it all laid out all along…clear back when we moved out here in 2017…He knew how He was going to get us back home to the Pacific NW. He knew why He moved us here to North Carolina. He knew WHY he wanted us here even in the midst of when we were wondering, “Why in the hell are we here?” Just last week He revealed to us His perfect plan… Brian was offered an amazing job with his company and the finances are all taken care of. Brian will be moving back with us at the end of January/beginning of February. A family friend is letting us rent her house until we decide to buy in the spring. Of course God’s plan is way better than I could have every planned on my own! Here’s another lesson of why I need to give up my control and continue to trust Him and be patient! God is good all of the time and all of the time God is good!