At the Park

  

December 12th, 2020

"What will this time next year look like?" I wonder this often throughout the years near significant holidays.

Last year, we were living in a different house than now. There was no thought in our mind about moving. In fact, I had resolved to living there for a long time because I grew to love the location and lot. I was not the biggest fan of the house, but I figured we could do an addition someday. The location and lot we had was beautiful!

On the 21st of December 2019, I was folding clothes, kids were playing and Jeff was putzing around the house - relaxing from a long week. I had just gotten downstairs to our laundry room/office when Jeff briefly mentioned, “this would be perfect for your school.” Looking over to his computer screen, we browsed the house photos. The house indeed would be perfect for that. At this point, I did not consider we would try to go for it. It was just a nice thought! 

That evening, lying in bed, I could not fall asleep. The street name of its address would not leave my mind alone! Going back another year, on May 2nd, 2018 I had a significant dream about a school I was to start “coming in at the park.” I knew without a doubt the dream was significant and I was confident the Lord would bring about further understanding to this dream in His timing, as He always does. Fast forward to December 21st, 2019, I lay in bed pondering this house perfect for starting a school, at the park.

I had wondered for a long time what “coming in at the park” meant. It was the only part of the dream that I had unclarity. That night I decided I to bring it up with Jeff. I could not shake the weighty feeling of looking back to realize I missed a great opportunity just because I brushed it off as, "nah, that couldn't be God."  

The next day I brought it up with Jeff. Based on what I believed the Lord had revealed a year and half prior, this house purchase seemed worth exploring. That way, if it did not work out, I could walk away peacefully knowing we had given it our best shot to be obedient. 

December 22nd I mentioned to our realtor friend that a house on the market intrigued us and that we would like to explore possibly buying it. He suggested seeing it on December 24th. I was shocked to see it so soon but we went for it!

So there we were Christmas Eve, walking through our current house for the first time. As we walked through it I kept hoping and expecting to have such a deep sense of whether or not we were to pursue the house. If anything, I experienced peace. The house was as good as it seemed online. At one point, Shirley stood in her “secret playroom” (under the stairs) and said, “Mommy? Jesus said we can have this house.” So matter of fact and joyful. I wondered, is she really hearing You Lord? Or, is that wishful thinking? I had asked the children to be asking the Lord what His thoughts were on the house. Carefully choosing my words so as not to put a specific line of thinking in their mind.

Once we saw that the house would be a good fit for us, Jeff and I spent time seeking the Lord in whether or not to pursue purchasing the house. Was this really God’s leading? We never experienced a “THUS SAITH THE LORD” moment but felt peace in pursuing the purchase of this house. We trusted the Lord to close all doors in our pursuit, if that was better for us. 

Purchasing the House

The offer we submitted was countered with another offer and we accepted!

As we pursued the process of buying the house we expected some hurdles along the way. I invited a small group of ladies, who knew the details of that May 2018 dream, to pray us through if they felt led to do so. It was an exciting time to watch the process of buying the house unfold along the way. It was often times surreal.

Like each of my house-purchase processes, I reach a point of feeling protective of what we are pursuing to buy. It often feels like it can be stolen right from under us at any second. It is a big faith exercise! The process can be compared to feeling pressed but not crushed, completely. 

I was not physically pregnant at the time, but it seemed the labor pains I saw myself experiencing in dreams were all beginning to make sense. So when I said one day in the purchase process, “I feel like I am in labor and nearing the end. I am so emotionally and physically exhausted.” Despite the confirmations left and right that the Lord was blessing this buying process, I experienced wanting to give up for the first time. I knew overall I was not going to give up, but that feeling, of wanting to give up? That’s a whole knew ball game! I came against it with praise and worship. --DEAR READER, it NEVER EVER ceases to amaze me how atmospheres shift whenever we begin to lift up praises to our Lord! Praise is a mighty weapon that pushes back darkness (discouragement, depression). For me, peace and often joy is the result of such times. In this case, I usually would not stop until I felt myself reach that point of peace in my spirit. God is so good, literally all the time. He makes a way where it seems there is no way. 

When it came time to officially put our house on the market, I wondered how it would go. The last house we sold was not something we had planned to sell either. Those circumstances were much different but the Lord was leading us to Minnesota. That house literally sold in two days with a bidding war. (Not typical at that time) Therefore, I was extra curious how this one would go! 

The purchase of our Parkview house was contingent on the sale of our house. It was January in Minnesota. Typically people are not looking to buy or move in the Winter. Perhaps it should not surprise me, but I was surprised to see that our house sold in three days, with 11 showings! -- I had to laugh when I was counting and recounting how many showings we had. The Lord had been using the number 11 in my week to week days to catch my attention for over a year. Eleven often represents change or transition. So it was just an extra bit of humor to me, to see the eleven showings! Change indeed was happening!

Jumping down the timeline a bit

We have some incredible friends that made this move possible. They blessed us with their prayer, labor, watching our children and cleaning. Then there were the friends that kept randomly leaving things at our door as welcome gifts. It was such a crazy time in the world too. Everything had been shut down due to covid-19. If you were driving on the road, you’d better have a permit to be out of your house, or on the way to a grocery store, or in our case, moving. 

The journey this past year has been wild. Back in 2017 the Lord had given me the name of the school, “Hope Rising.” So the icing on the cake, in moving, was learning that our Pastor was starting a sermon series titled, “Hope Rising” the very week we moved in. How crazy, timely and funny is that?! It could not have been more confirming! (He and many others had no idea about our name for the school)

Transition

This most certainly was an exciting God thing to live out. Even really cool experiences like this do not go without saying, transition is still transition. We all handle transition uniquely. This transition was remarkably hard on us mentally and emotionally. It’s change and in 2020 no less! It was a big decision that affected the whole family. We have moved a lot for our seven years of marriage (6). This time, with three children. There are things about this location that we found we disliked. There are things about the incredible space that make life a bit more inconvenient. Are those things bad? Thankfully, not at all. However, each person processes change differently and when experiencing major changes at the same time? Things can get really uncomfortable! It takes a lot more grace with one another to make it through. And a whole lot of leaning on the Lord for strength and wisdom! Otherwise, it’s all too easy to let our discomfort turn into anger. Therefore, leaving those around us possibly wounded. I felt reminded often of the Israelites leaving Egypt, on the way to their promised land and wishing to go back to being a slave. While we were not slaves in our old house, it was the land of familiar to us. Things were predictable. 

At some point though, in our own ways, we had resolved to have the mentality to persevere and remember all that the Lord had done and is doing. 

In my experience, when you experience the Lord being so obvious about what to do or where to go, it is always in preparation to give me unquestionable confidence that I am where I am to be. 

So, when you experience circumstances seeking to steal that confidence away, and they do come, you can look back and say “no, there’s no way I could have done this without the Lord’s intervention.” And as you stand on what the Lord has revealed to you, declaring what is true, you will find yourself at some point experiencing such awe and joy at what the Lord has done. There will be great peace about where you are at too. 

Missing the old does not compare to the thankfulness of being where we are at! 

So, even when people tell you, “I think you’re crazy.” Or, “I think you’re practically giving away what you have.” (Something I heard several times this year) Just stand strong on what you know the Lord to be telling you and showing you. It makes a world of difference to have a team behind you praying too!

Some of the songs that got us through:

This is a Move - Tasha Cobbs and Brandon Lake

Way Maker - Steffani Gretzinger 

God I Look to You - Jenn Johnson

Goodness of God - Jenn Johnson

Prophesy Your Promise

Praise you Before my Breakthrough

Raise a Hallelujah - Bethel

There were days I felt led to circle our new house before it was officially ours, and simply pray and worship the Lord around it. As if, creating a spiritual border wall of protection over what we were convinced the Lord had reserved for us. I wonder what it looked like in the spiritual realm when we did so?

Just One More Thing!

And just because I can’t help but share how crazy and good God is, one of the things that brought such tremendous confidence that this was our house was from another dream I had had on, August 20th, 2019. I was standing before my house. (One I had never seen before) It was brown, split level. The whole house was vacant, had tall ceilings, and felt dark spiritually. Together with my mom, who often represents the Holy Spirit in my dreams, we went into the house. In each room I stood and interceded. I never recalled what was prayed but it felt like the prayers were pushing out darkness. A spiritual reclaiming of ground so to speak. I woke up, recorded it and felt so strongly like I had just gone through some intense spiritual warfare reclaiming ground. Of what? I did not know. One evening I was going through my dream journal, reading through all the dreams. In my gut I felt like I should search in the search bar, "brown" in my journal. So I did.  It gave me chills of excitement as I read the dream that popped up, quicker than I could read it, it all came back to memory. What we were in the process of buying was this brown, vacant, vaulted ceiling, and split level house. Whoa. God is so personable you guys. So creative! He was preparing my heart well before this opportunity came about. 

Bringing it all to a close, we are trusting the Lord to bring together Hope Rising Montessori. He is always so faithful to lead us. For right now, it is our homeschool classroom. 

After making it through reading this, may you be encouraged that God is personable and loves showing us His goodness. It is my prayer that every reader will be richly blessed so uniquely this year. 

OH! Just one more thing! These little highlight videos? They totally make life look perfect and beautiful. Perfection can be defined many ways, but I will just clarify that these are called highlight videos for a reason. 😉  The first two weeks of homeschool, Walt cried the whole morning because he could not participate in the big kid lessons. No amount of finding creative ways to make him feel included helped. Shirley, Stanley and I were adjusting to a new routine of school on top of the stress of listening to crying. We were not always patient with each other and I cried too almost every day! This was no where near what my classroom in MO looked like. (Calm, peaceful, children active in their lessons.) I am happy to say that now, we have figured out a better routine and Walt hardly cries about it anymore!