Giving Up

At our mid-week church service last night, the pastor preached a message about giving everything up to God and not holding anything back. He used the example of God telling Abraham to give up his only son Isaac as a sacrifice, and then, providing a ram at the last second so Isaac could live. If you don’t know the story, take a look at it here. Pastor challenged us to “give up our Isaac,” in other words, don’t hold back in turning our lives over to God. He can’t work with what you don’t give him. As it would happen, my husband and found ourselves in a situation recently and did just that. It was not easy. By “not easy” I really mean “what have we gotten ourselves into” hard. I was nervous and anxious. I knew God would provide for us but change and uncertainty make me crazy(er). Here we were, with 2 moderately successful careers, 3 kids, and potentially homeless.

A little over a year ago, we rented a house that seemed like a dream come true. We agreed to rent the house, paying the rent to a down-payment and then buy the house. I have no doubt that God brought us to that place. From the beginning, it was clear that we were there for a reason, and, at first, that was a good thing. Everyone was happy, things were going well, we were working toward buying the house and the bottom dropped. Sparing you the outrageous and unbelievable details, I slowly came to realize that what we initially thought were trials that we were to overcome, may have been warning signs to tell us to run fast in the other direction. So we quit fighting, threw in the towel, rolled over and played dead. About 3 weeks ago, we gave notice that we were moving out, starting Labor Day weekend. One major problem though—we didn’t have a house to move into. We had found another house to buy but didn't realize what a process it is to buy a house; a process that we weren't completely ready for. Our last-resort plan was to get an RV, put all our stuff in storage, and live at the RV park or the lake for a while. As the days ticked by, that became a likely solution. On Wednesday of last week (2 days before we were to start moving), God nudged us toward an older couple from church with a 2^nd home in a great location, that was empty, except for a few of their things. We started moving in last weekend, just as we had originally planned, even though our initial decision was full of missing pieces. By handing the situation completely over to God, He was able to provide for us in a way that is better than anything we could have come up with on our own. And going back to the sermon last night, that house, the one we thought was perfect, was our Isaac. It was the very situation that we needed to give up to Him before we could experience what He had in store for us.

So we are moving and get to do all that fun stuff that comes with it, besides the heavy lifting. Changing my address and switching utilities over (most of them are with completely different companies, even though we are only moving 7 miles). If you think I’m missing a few washers in my brain now, just wait til the moving stress takes over. I will be useless.