Where are you God and why am I here?

Oh, some of the questions we wrestle with in life… Where are you God and why am I here? I am not meaning this in the sense of why was I born, what is my purpose in this world, why am I living in this time (although I have wondered what it would be like to live in a different time period, ha). No, no, no I mean specifically where are you God (in Asheville) and why and why am I here (in Asheville). Another way of putting that would be, “Lord, why did you bring me to Asheville?” We have been praying over this question for months. I mentioned in my first post that God is showing up, and He is. He has. He keeps on showing up. It just took us a while, me specifically, to see Him here. Let me tell you a little bit more about what we have been going through. Just to make it easy and understandable, let’s start at January…

January: Started looking for land. Started seeing a new practice for this pregnancy since I did not like the first one at all. Snowed in for a week with three kids and I was struggling with morning sickness.

February: Kids started getting sick…the midwifery practice that I fell in love with closed its doors. We continued looking for land. I got a bad cold and then the kids got the cold too.

March: We all got head lice. Yes, all five of us had head lice and it was a nightmare. We were still on the hunt for land. I tried my THIRD practice for this pregnancy and decided that unless they were aliens I was going to stick with them so someone could deliver this baby and give me healthcare.We all got a horrible virus that lasted on average two weeks per person. We did not get the virus at the same time. We went to Disney, some of us still suffering from the virus (mainly Matt). Kat got a double ear infection at Disney.

April: Continued to look for land. Still recovering from the virus. Ella started to sleep in a big girl bed (if you aren’t a parent, this is a very hard adjustment and made for several sleepless nights).

May: We went under contract for land. After a few weeks, we withdrew our offer after realizing it was not the right piece of land for us (so heartbreaking!!). Started potty training Ella (again, if you are not a parent then all you need to know is this is freaking hard work). I started seeing a counselor, more on that later. Just as school was wrapping up for Haley, she got a stomach virus.

June: School ended. I got tonsillitis. Kat got food poisoning. We decided to take a break and stop looking for land. Haley moved to Nebraska. I got tonsillitis AGAIN.

July: We went to Florida. My dear friend in Georgia took the girls for a week to help out. My dad had a heart attack. Kat had a severe allergic reaction…still don’t know to what exactly but we will pursue testing when she has been healthy for 2 months. Meanwhile, this lady was massive pregnant…super uncomfortable…praying baby will come soon.

So, now it is August and we are all waiting on baby to arrive. This month is a very special one for our family because it is the month Matt and I got engaged 10 years ago, married 9 years ago, and it is my dad’s birthday month as well. To be honest, I was hoping baby would come in July so we would have less celebrations in August, but we will welcome and rejoice over whatever day baby makes his/her arrival some time this month!

Let’s get back to the topic of this post. Where are you God and why am I here? In January we volunteered to be leaders for a community group in our church. Selfishly, we didn’t really want to serve in this area, but there was a large need for leaders and after much prayer, we decided to do it because it was where God was leading us. It wasn’t that easy though. We thought it would be a great opportunity to make friends and get connected, but our group had very slow start. Like crazy slow. I was frustrated and felt like maybe we weren’t actually supposed to serve in this area because our group just wasn’t meeting/forming/coming together. When May rolled around, BAM, our group started to meet regularly and the impact was great on all of the members. I can say with full confidence that this is one way we’ve seen God move here in Asheville. This is one major way we believe we were brought to Asheville. Several of the members of the group have told us that they believe we were brought here to lead this group of people, and it’s making a major difference in their lives. It is making a difference in ours as well.

If you have read all three of my recent personal posts (this one is number three) then you will remember how much I loath the home we are living in. It has been one of the hardest things to deal with here since it is where we spend the majority of our time. I fully believe that the water has poisoned us and weakened our immune systems, the carpet has added to the sickness (who knows what has happened to this carpet), and the isolation of living on a mountain has made it very difficult to live life. As you can imagine, I have cried out to God time and time again asking Him, no really BEGGING Him, to remove us from this place. It is not a sanctuary, and place of rest or anything that comes to mind when you hear the word home. It is a roof over our heads and I have tried my darnedest to make the best of it. I have cleaned this place so much, and honestly at one point I decided to find things I am grateful for here every day. For example, Asheville has a large homeless population, and I decided to be thankful for having a place to live, a place of shelter for my family. The truth remains that this house has made it almost impossible to be comfortable here in Asheville, so I have been praying for a long time that God would provide land for us, or a house to buy, and then it became (when clearly none of those ideas were part of God’s plan for right now) a new house to rent. However, I knew how unlikely this would be considering we have three cats and almost three kids. Oh, you know how much people love to rent to folks who have kids and cats…not.

Well, here is an incredible story…about two weeks ago we were meeting with the community pastor at our church to talk about our community group. You know, the one we feel is a place where God is working in our lives and the lives of others. We weren’t together for too long with the pastor, but we mentioned how we did not enjoy where we were renting, and he mentioned how he was moving out of a rental his family loved. He asked us what we were looking for, and it basically fit the description of his rental home. He offered for us to come see it, like that night, and so we did. It is WAY better than where we are currently living, and offered some major perks that got me really excited. I was trying to guard my heart as we had no idea if this place was even going to be available to us. Turns out, God allowed this opportunity fall into our lap at just the right time. It was/is the craziest timing, and it is so unbelievably perfect. We move one week from today.
This new house is in a very convenient area, has a backyard and a side yard, a tree house, all hard wood floors (Praise the Lord) and the best part is, it has city water! No more brown walls, brown carpet, and brown water. Thank you Jesus! God has blown us away, I mean really.

One important thing I want to mention is with all of the hardships that 2016 has brought upon my family and I, I have not been trying to do this on my own. Being honest with my friends, family, and God has been very important for me to survive, but I wanted to do more than survive. I knew I needed to see a counselor to guide me, challenge me, and encourage me through this time. I reached out to a Christian counselor that spoke at a moms group I attended this year. It has been a wonderful experience for me. I am a big fan of counseling and mentoring! It is not a sign of weakness, or something to be ashamed of when you need wise counsel. In fact, I am sad for all of those who do not see the value and benefit of counseling as an option throughout different times in ones life. This is not my first, nor will it be my last counseling experience. Really, this has been spiritual mentoring to me during the last four months and as I mentioned above has guided, encouraged, and challenged me in the best ways. I would urge all of you to reach out and consider counseling if you are experiencing a season of struggle as I have been.

So here is the challenge, we are still searching for all of the reasons why we are here in Asheville. We have seen God working very clearly in a few ways and that is enough for me! It takes time. It takes patience. So we will wait patiently on the Lord. We have been here for one year on the 8th of August and we move to our new rental on the 13th of August. By the way, my due date is August 20th. Crazy timing, but it is also perfect timing. God is just getting started here with my family! I don’t know what the next year will bring, but I know I desperately need the Lord to get through this and every season, I trust that God will teach me a lot no matter what next year brings, and I know without a doubt that God IS here and He brought me here for MANY reasons.

Big girl bed…before the sleepless nights.

In Florida we released some butterflies we had been taking care of and watched their life cycles. Fun times.

Our community group (horrible cell phone pic, and it was back lit so I tried to adjust it) serving together on national ice cream day.

Kat’s epic allergic reaction. Most of the pics turned out to be way too graphic to share. The red spot in the middle of her chest is her hemangomia, she has had that since birth. You can see at this point, what started on lower body had spread to the top. It was awful!

Some of the sediments (manganese) that are in our drinking, bathing, cooking, and clothe washing water. We do not drink this water, we have a berkey and we cook with that water too. Outside of that, we have to use this water.

Our once beautiful washing machine…has been ruined by this water. No fabric is white in our house…no white undershirts for Matt, no white towels, no white anything. There is a white piece of paper so you can see I did not mess with the colors here, and check out the brown wall…the carpet is the same color. Bleh.

Our once white rug…this was just cleaned. Anything white turns brown/yellow. So gross. If you think we are excited to move, you have NO IDEA. So, so, so, so, so, so excited!