When God Pulls the Rug Out from Under You...

It's a good thing.

It's not necessarily a comfortable thing.

But,

if God is doing the pulling,

it's a good thing.

If you had asked me at the beginning of this year what our biggest faith challenge would be for 2011,

without hesitating,

without blinking an eye,

without skipping a beat --

I would tell you

it was deciding to adopt internationally.

The paperwork,

the adoption expenses,

the waiting,

the red tape --

all of that would be part of our 2011 challenge.

But that's not what happened.

In June our house sold and our journey began.

We had a rental house lined up. We would be next-door-neighbors to my parents. I would help my mom care for my ailing dad. I was perfectly at peace with that.

But there was one problem.

The owner of the rental home wasn't quite ready for us to move in yet.

Could we wait a month?

No problem. We put our stuff in storage, kept only what we really needed on a day-to-day basis, and prepared to "rough it" for a little while.

"This will be kinda fun!" we told ourselves.

July came and went. My dad got weaker. I drove an hour each way to visit with him and care for him. Why can't we be next door already? I often wondered.

At the end of July, we were again asked if we could we wait another month.

Ummm. Okay.

By now, "roughing it" was getting kind of old. But, in order to live next door to my parents, we were willing to do it a little longer.

Then August arrived. My dad passed away. This was not part of my plan for 2011! It was not a challenge I wanted to face. I felt the rug begin to pull out from under me as I finalized funeral preparations and dug through suitcases looking for appropriate funeral clothes for my girls and myself.

Immediately after the funeral, I was approached about a teaching need at a new Christian school in Georgia. I laughed. The whole idea seemed just ridiculous. I had just buried my dad. I was NOT about to leave my widowed mom now too. And, on top of it all, after much prayer, we had started our homestudy here in California (to be completed when we actually had a home again). Surely, God wasn't asking us to leave! Not now!



But, God was gently prodding. He kept pulling on that rug of self-dependence, trying to get me to fall into His arms and trust Him. Each night as I lay in bed, I couldn't shake the growing realization that God's plan for us included packing up all of our things, saying good-bye to dear friends and family, ending our homestudy (for now at least) and moving across an entire continent to a little town in Georgia.

But then, Mom came down with pneumonia. I cared for her and just knew that plans had changed and God needed me to stay here with her, not go to Georgia. As if reading my thoughts, mom said to me one day, "If I am the reason you don't want to go to Georgia, go. I'll be fine."

Oh, the blessings of a saintly mother!!!

Finally, almost one hundred percent surrendered to God's will for us (but still secretly hoping for another plan) I prayed, "Lord, if you want me to stay here with mom, open up the house next to her so we can finally move there."

One hour later the phone rang. That house would not be ready for several more months.

Click.

*****

On October 5, we leave for Georgia...

and an unknown future.

This is our story thus far.

I am leaning hard on God...

because I don't understand a lot of what is happening right now.

The rug --

that rug of my own wisdom, my own plans, my own scheduling, my own will --

has been pulled out from under me.

I have lost my balance

and fallen...

...into the arms of a loving God.

I am just trusting...

that God is working all things out...

for good.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28


P.S. If you're wondering why my husband is not mentioned as being a part of this struggle to know and follow God's will, it's because he said "yes" immediately. He was just waiting, and praying, for me to answer the call too.