Hi friends and happy Thursday!
I have such a treat for you today! I am turning the bloggity blog over to my sweet friend, Erin, who blogs over at Blue-Eyed Bride. She is the wife to Todd and mama to two of the cutest little boys ever. If you don’t read her blog yet, you should! You will love her! I originally heard about the idea of the 31 day series from her. When I mentioned that I was considering doing it, she encouraged me to do it and when I worried about writing about the same topic for 31 days and thought that maybe it was too daunting, but she believed in me. And here we are 17 days later! When I first thought about having a guest poster during this series, I knew she just had to guest post! 🙂 I am so excited to have her here!! I absolutely LOVE and can relate so much to her story that she is sharing with us today…especially with the season of life that we are in. I just needed to hear this story and I know you do too!
Without further ado, here is Erin!
Last fall, we sold our house after having it on the market for ten months. We were so excited to get it sold. It was the sweetest little brick bungalow where we’d brought our children home from the hospital. It was ours. We loved it. I couldn’t imagine another family living there, but we’d outgrown it.
We were excited to get to find some newer construction, in town, with a garage. But when our house sold, there wasn’t anything like that on the market for us. So we moved in with my husband’s grandmother. We brought our clothes and the kids’ toys and that was it. Because we assumed that after at most a couple of months we’d be moving into a house.
The months came and went. Christmas came and went. We continued to search and things would fall through.
Let me tell you that I am a planner. I had planned this all out. We’d put our house on the market, it would sell and we wouldn’t go through the grueling trial of living with children and dogs and having a house on the market. But that’s not how God planned it. We waited ten months for our house to sell.
I had planned for us to find the perfect house and move right in. But, clearly, that wasn’t God’s plan for us.
The first night in Todd’s grandmother’s house, I snuggled up next to my husband and sobbed. I’m ashamed to tell you how lost and scared I felt that we didn’t have a home to call ours. I cried until I fell asleep.
When January came and we still hadn’t found our house, I said to Todd, “This whole year is going to be a waste. We’re just spending all our time looking for the house.”
And he said to me, “Erin, do you hear yourself? Do you see your kids? How is any day a waste when we’re all with each other?”
And that was that.
I had been a spoiled brat.
There are a lot of things about this living situation that are slightly uncomfortable, but it won’t be the biggest problem we face in life.
In April, we broke ground on our home. We’re now about thirty days from finishing up this process.
Let me tell you about this process.
This was never about the home where we’ll end up. This was about letting go, having patience, and fully trusting God to take care of us.
And our reward is not a shiny new house. Our reward is having peace in His presence. Our reward is this incredible year of learning and growing and toughing it out together.
There was a day in February where my eyes were opened. We’d been in our temporary living situation for about three months, and I had just suffered a miscarriage. Things were not perfect. But I heard a very very clear message from God to just trust Him.
And I did.
And that’s where I found peace.
It’s not always easy. It doesn’t always come naturally.
But there is true comfort in knowing that I am not in control.
Can you imagine?
When I think back on this past year, I am so grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow and be challenged and be forced to just lean into Him and open my heart to what He wanted to teach me in this process.
You can read Erin’s 31 day series about Creating Whitespace, here. You can also find on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.
This is the 17th post in a 31 day series about Finding Peace. You can find all of the posts in this series, here.
