Freed To Live!

It's April 6 and we have the slip n slide out! The warmth of the sun and the new life of spring is coinciding with some new life and light inside of me. We have lived in NC for 3.5 years now. For the first year or so I was pretty happy living here. I was meeting lots of people, and even though I was not forming deep friendships right away, I wasn't expecting to, as I figured it would take about a year to feel settled in a new place.

Sydney on the Slip N Slide

About 2 years ago, I began to feel discontent with where we live, like it was too far out and causing me to be isolated. Last winter, I really began to feel the effects of isolation and loneliness and started to open up to Jeff about how I was feeling. He had lots of good ideas for ways to combat those feelings, and ways for me to form deeper friendships, but I think I was so stuck in an attitude of self-pity that I just wasn't even listening.

This past fall/winter, we did decide to put the house up for sale to move into Winston, and for lots of good reasons. We have a strong desire to have community where we live, to not just sleep and eat in Arcadia and do all of life in Winston. So in order to be closer to Jeff's work, friends in town, church, and activities for kids that living in town offers, we put the house on the market in January.

Reid shoots his "gun!"

I have seen God work miraculously in selling homes before, such as our last house in VA, so I knew that we would live where He intended, and each day, I would remind myself that "today God has me living here in Arcadia. This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it." But I think my mind was still so stuck on things being better once we just moved into town. I know it effected my attitude toward the kids, Jeff, and my general perspective on life. My idolatry of living in town and my living each day in survival mode really robbed me of the joy of living.

In February I went to our church's women's retreat. The theme was "Delight Your Soul In The Richest of Fare!" And there I saw how I don't look to Jesus for life, joy, fullness, satisfaction, and perfect peace, the things He offers so freely. I look to my circumstances and what will make me happy. The problem with me is that I change my mind so often that I go back and forth on what will make me happy. And what a sad way to live life, just thinking of what will make me happy.

Ethan plays near his bamboo tent. The rocks underneath is the "bed" he made for Sydney to sleep on in their tent.

A couple of weeks after the retreat I met with a woman at my church gifted in counseling and walking through issues with others. In such a gentle way, Wendy helped me to draw out some unhealthy thought and relational patterns I had developed over the years. The Holy Spirit was working in me to show me self-protective strategies I had come to embrace, keeping people at a distance to not really know me (which is rooted in fear- they might not like me if they really know me!) My self-protective ways had become so ingrained in me to the point of it being like me putting on metal so I wouldn't let others in. She asked me how I would describe myself, and I didn't have an answer for her. It was so disturbing to me that I didn't know how to describe myself (beyond the superficial, of course), and it was a real eye opener.

Through this conversation and conversations with some friends of ours (which Jeff somehow got me to really open up with this set of friends and make myself vulnerable) and the work of the Holy Spirit drawing me closer to My Father (I had become so that my relationship with Him was dry and more about what I knew in my mind and less about a real closeness with Him), I saw that the primary cause of my isolation and loneliness was not living 20 minutes from town, but was instead me keeping people at an arm's length, thus isolating myself. Once I was stripped of this, my only legitimate reason for needing to move was being closer to Whole Foods and a few other places. (You can laugh here, it's meant to be funny!) A couple of weeks ago, I pulled down the for sale signs.

Other contributing factors included newly developing friendships with neighbors, and once again seeing how wonderful it is to live where we do! Where else can we have these gardens, nature walks at the farm next door, loads of room for the kids to run and ride bikes, connect with nature in our own backyard, etc.? My heart delights to stay here!

Farmer Tilley tilled up his land today.

Much more importantly than where we are living are the things the Spirit has been at work with me on.
*Take off the metal! Let people in to know me, be real, make myself vulnerable.
*I am indestructible! Risk doesn't seem so scary when I remember that I am in Christ and can't be destroyed.
*Live life as a journey, not a checklist. Looking at my life as just what needs to be done is death. The Spirit gives life!!
*God's sovereignty is not some lofty idea. It's real and impacts every minute of my day.