So, Brett and I are the proud "renters" of a Fort Benning house.....for anyone that's read this blog over the last few months, I KNOW I do not have to tell you how happy I am about this!!
No more driving an eternity to get to civilization, no more DEADZONE for my iphone, and not to mention the all important see ALL OUR BELONGINGS AGAIN! My dishes! My picture frames! My artwork! My bedding!! YAY!
Anyway...
Here's the deal though. The decision to live in someone elses house with someone elses stuff, running a heavy open door policy for any soldier or soldier family/friend member that needs to come and stay, plus getting some up-close and personal observation of the Woods ( who's house and stuff and ministry we were sitting on top of) has been such a learning experience for me. Sadly most of the lessons I have learned have not been how to do ministry better, or techniques in being a better witness of Christs love or anything nice like that ( although that does come into play) instead pretty much every lesson I've learned has been about how selfish and how stuck in my ways I am.
Soon after we moved in I read Luke 9:57-62, which incidentally is entitled "The Cost of Following Jesus" in my Bible and it talks about these three different characters who have different excuses for not following after Jesus. And the irony here is that I actually taught a lesson on these verses when I was living at Fort Lewis. HA! Apparently I needed to listen to my own cautionary tale because it became very very clear to me over the six months that we've lived in this house that while "The son of man has no where to lay his head" ( v. 58), I pretty much ASSUMED that God was going to give me a sweet pad with all sorts of personal space....WRONG. Basically, I thought that I was a sold out little follower of Jesus but apparently that "sold out"-ness had a lot of clauses attached.
And so, over the past 6 months I've been slowly whittling away at my clauses.
I am writing this now, a week before we move ( we aren't getting our belongings until the next of next week so we'll be here one more week before officially moving), because I feel certain that I will need to learn these lessons again...why? Because I've been on a constant learning-cycle-rinse-repeat for SIX MONTHS and I feel like I've only barely gotten them through my thick skull. And I know, that there will be all sorts of new uncomfortable situations in our future. Because uncomfortable is what we've signed up for- That was the big following Jesus clause that was right up there in big red letters.
1 comment:
Oh girl! How I can relate. When I was big pregnant with Caylin we were waiting on God to show us where Josh should work. He had quit his job at our church at that time because we knew it was time to move on, but alas nothing had opened up for us. I cried out to God for months over this. (literally, CRIED out. I can remember me throwing a hissy fit in the shower once) I wanted to set up a nursery so bad for Caylin. I wanted to buy pink things and paint walls purple, but she was born and we still had no where to go. In fact, three weeks after she was born we had to move out of our apartment. We put all of our stuff in storage and drove to Texas for two weeks and then Wisconsin for two weeks. During those four weeks we finally learned that Josh had gotten a job at our first church here in Toledo. When we moved here with an 8 week old baby, a 19 month old toddler and a 3 year old "big boy" God continued to show me the selfish person I was. For MONTHS and MONTHS he worked on my heart. Did surgery on the nastiness within. It was PAINFUL. And boy there's nothing like having a baby to continue to show you how selfish we are. So hang in there! It may only get "dirtier." But unfortunately it's necessary surgery.
When we were in limbo with Josh's job I also was convicted over the scriptures of "the cost to follow Jesus." I guess what I went through was no less than any missionary does really. But anyway, when I read your post I remembered all of that and thought I'd share.
I'm so happy you now have a place to set up a nest in! YEA! God is good.
I believe I win the award for the LONGEST comment ever on any blog. Sorry!
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