Walking Away....Our Move Back to the City

About eight months ago the Lord called our family to sell our farm and move back to the Dallas area. When my husband first told me what he was thinking, I told him he was crazy. I mean, we had just moved to our dream home and property two years prior and we loved it!  How could we just walk away??!!

Farm life with all of the animals, fresh air, awesome neighbors, great church, hiking, etc. was just what we had waited and waited for.  It was our dream.

William was pretty insistent that we needed to move back and I was pretty insistent that we did not.  Finally someone brought to my attention the dreaded "S" word...submit...and I did.  Then God took over. He was so faithful to change my heart once I stepped out with William based on faith and submission only.

We mentioned to my brother that we were moving back and he offered to let us stay with him until we could sell the farm, so, I kid you not, within a week we had given away our animals to good owners and we were gone.  Two weeks and our farm was on the market.  Two months and it was sold, papers were signed and we were officially homeless!

So now we go from our farm to living with my brother.  Now, my brother lives in a house of about 1500 square feet.  He was gracious enough to give us two bedrooms and a bathroom plus, since he is single and doesn't really care, I pretty much have run of the kitchen!!  :)  But living in a small space with 7 people (though one is away at college) has its challenges.

Well, after we sold the farm, we decided to get through the holidays just staying with my brother and then we would look for a house after the new year.  Well, it is the end of April and we are still here!!

There is so much I want to share with you about the last year and our move because God has just been so faithful to us and taught us so, so much, but today I want to share a struggle that I have been having...contentment.

My brother has blessed us so much by allowing to live here and we have had a really good time.  We have grown closer and have just had a lot of fun together.  But every so often the spirit of discontent will rear its ugly head in my thoughts.

I have called it many different things over the last several months and come up with a TON of excuses like, "We need to be in a house before Tori goes away to college so she will have something familiar to come home to."  Also, "I can't have people over until I get a house."  Or even "We have no room to put summer clothes!!"  But if we are going to be completely honest here....What I am feeling is discontent.

So why am I telling you about this?  Well, there are a few reasons!

First, you might be feeling that way too wherever you are planted right now.  It doesn't really matter what size house we have or how much stuff, we all can struggle with being content.  Content is defined as being satisfied and sometimes satisfaction is pretty hard to come by!  We see someone with bigger....better....more....prettier....whatever and we want that too.  

Second, it is REALLY easy for discontentment to hide under the guise of excuses!! Sometimes we just have to call a spade a spade and realize that when we are not happy with where we are in life we are discontent.

And the final reason is that I want to share with you how God is helping me in this area of my life!!

He has shown me that every day I need to make a point to spend time being thankful.  You see, I have learned our blessings come not from what we have or don't have, but from the Spirit of the Lord.  We are blessed by my brother's generosity.  We are blessed by the encouragement of our church.  We are blessed by the joy we have through Christ.  We don't need to have "whatever" in order to be blessed.  

If we did, that would mean that God loves and blesses Americans more than He does those in third world countries...and He doesn't.  In fact God has a special place in His word for the poor and the oppressed and He has pretty strong words about those that are wealthy.  

So what I have learned is that anything the Lord gives us, be it material goods, joy, peace, or blessings from others, is meant not for ourselves alone, but to be used to bless others.  And if I have the biggest house on the block, but I am not using it to glorify God, it becomes an obscenity.

Sometimes I need to be packed into a little house with no bathroom counter space to realize just how incredibly blessed I am and how much I must take that and use it to advance God's kingdom.

Sometimes I need to learn to be okay with a "transient lifestyle" to realize that it is about going out into all the earth and not bringing them all to me.  

And sometimes I need to live out of boxes in order to realize that my life is not mine to live, but that it is mine to give.