New Bern, Here We Come!

All packed up. It only took 2 days, a 26 foot truck, a last minute extra trailer that will be gotten on Monday, and pretty much all our energy. But were on our way!

It Makes Me Happy When...

...Kylee's pacifier matches her diaper. :)

(and if you can't tell, this girl loves her tootsies!)

Lessons

These past two months have been such an experience for me.

I can't even begin to tell you how much my faith has grown through it.

Though this should have been true before, I now can honestly say that I have 100% faith in God that when He says something, it is so. It WILL happen.

If there is anyone we can trust in, it's Him. As long as we are continuing to follow His will in all areas of our life, He will come through on His promises to us.

We have moved quite a few times...this will be our 7th move, and we'll be celebrating our 6 year wedding anniversary in October. This will be our 5th BIG move, as in - moving to another state.

That's a lot of house shopping.

And again, we are house hunting.

Because of these past two months, I honestly have NO apprehension about the process of finding the right house for us. I know that we are following God's will in moving back to New Bern, so I know He also has the perfect house for us...we just have to find it!

I have also learned a lot of other lessons through all of this...and one of those is that we have absolutely amazing friends and family.

I am overwhelmed by the amount of people that said they have prayed for us through this. When I say "thank you," please know that I mean it.

It really means so much to me that you care enough for us to pray with us in this situation.

James says "Every good and perfect gift is from above" and our friends and family are one of those gifts! I am so thankful for each of you!

Now that He has answered us with a job offer, will you please send up a prayer of thanks? He is such an awesome God, and I hate to think that He gets so many requests, and maybe not enough praises when He answers us.

Again, thank you all! :)

I trust that God has some pretty awesome plans for us in New Bern...if you'd like to follow our journey, I'll continue to update the blog. :)

Mysterious Ways

I remember talking to my sister last week about this whole waiting situation.

I told her that I felt like once our answer came, it wasn't just going to be a phone call with a job offer.

I didn't know why, but I just felt like however it fell into place, it would come out of left field.

Boy did it ever.

Greg's hours have been cut drastically at his current job because of new management, and we knew that something had to change, whether that meant getting a second job here...or since we were so set on going to New Bern, possibly finding something else there.

All last week, we were very confused. For whatever reason, we felt like the phone call wasn't going to come, yet we had been so prepared to go to New Bern that we wondered if we were just supposed to go...with no job offer...but be in the right place in the right time for if/when it came.

Our prayer so many times last week was, "Lord, we want to do Your will...we just don't know what that is!!!"

So, Greg called the manager again on Thursday with all of that in mind, and left him a detailed message. He told him that he (Greg) needed to make a decision on what to do by Friday afternoon. He wanted to work for him, but he couldn't wait much longer and needed to look into something else if it wasn't going to work out with Volvo. He asked the manager to call him when he had time to talk.

Guess what?

The phone never rang.

So...Greg called our pastor in North Carolina. We'd heard of an opening at the New Bern Toyota dealership and knew the service manager goes to our NC church. For whatever reason, Greg felt led to make that phone call and see if there was anything there to look into.

Long story short, Greg got in touch with this guy and everything just fell into place.

All this weekend, just like that.

We got the OFFICIAL phone call this evening (about 10 minutes ago!) and we are officially employed by them.

And this offer is way more than we were even *hoping* for at Volvo...

God is SO good.

So, we move this Saturday, as in - 5 days from now!

I HAVE SO MUCH TO DO!!!

But I'll be praising the Lord through it all!!!

Thank you so much everyone for your prayers!!

Guess Who?

Two stacks of neatly piled hangers. 

This is the work of my husband. 

I wish some of his organization skills rubbed off on me...my method of packing hangers is grabbing the biggest box available and just throwing them in!

Oops!

Somebody's hand caught the bowl!

Random Thoughts

I feel like there's a battle going on inside me.

I have so many thoughts that are running through my head, and I think they can be classified into two categories.

1. Thoughts (worries) of my flesh
2. Thoughts (known truth) of my spirit

My flesh keeps throwing ideas at me...ideas of what could happen...what should happen...what hasn't happened...

But I have two choices.

1. I can worry, and freak out...throw my hands up in the air and say, "What on earth is going on? How could this possibly all work out?"
2. I can go to His Word, and stand on His truth that He's given me. I can remember what His word says, and BELIEVE it.

It's so much easier to let my flesh win. But with every worry my flesh is telling me, I need to combat it with Scripture.

Psalm 119:147
I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word.

Psalm 143:8
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.

Worry #1 - Seriously, God? This can't be part of Your plan.

Psalm 18:30a
As for God, his way is perfect;
Psalm 34:19
A righteous man may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers him from them all;

Worry #2 - Why does none of this make any sense?

Proverbs 3:5-6

⁵ Trust in the LORD with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.

Worry #3 - How are we going to pay our bills?

Philippians 4:19
And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

Worry #4 - I really can't feel You with me right now, God. Are you really taking care of everything? Are You really still here?

Psalm 55:22
Cast your cares on the LORD
and he will sustain you;
he will never let the righteous fall.
1 Peter 5:7
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Psalm 34:18
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 139:7-10
⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

Worry #5 - I'm so afraid of all the "What if's."

Psalm 56:3-4a
³ When I am afraid,
I will trust in you.
⁴ In God, whose word I praise,

in God I trust; I will not be afraid.
Joshua 1:9
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Deuteronomy 31:8
The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

Worry #6 - There's no way I can be at peace with everything that's going on right now.

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Worry #7 - Why does it have to be like this? Why does it have to be so hard?

1 Peter 5:10
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Amidst everything that's going on, I still want to make Him proud. It's easy to follow Him and praise Him when things are fine and dandy. But just because we're going through a difficult time does not mean I should forget about Him. No matter what I am going through, I want my honest prayer to be:

Psalm 19:14
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

So even though it's not easy, I'm going to choose to remember and believe the promises of His word over the worries of my flesh.