Friday, Sept 17th - Being in God's will

YEA! It's time for my post about how GREAT it's been to be in God's will! I'm so glad to be able to share this with you because what happened to me was SO NEAT!

Being in God's will for your life is the BEST place to be. It might be uncomfortable or difficult or downright hard and not fun, but it also brings so much peace.....and God IS THERE and SO REAL when you need Him.

Most of you reading my blog know that, although I was excited to move to England and be closer to Paul's family, I didn't REALLY want to move. I had a 1yr old, almost 3 yr old, 5 yr old and 7 yr old. Mostly I struggled with the terms of our move. It was an open ended, sort of 'forever' move. I was totally content living in Austin. I loved our church, our friends, our house and our life. If Paul had come home with an offer for an assignment in England, with a clearly defined end date, I probably would have rejoiced with him and been very excited. It wasn't that. It was a "3-5 year" indefinite...sort of "forever" move. There were no promises that we would return after 3-5 years. There was definitely no guarantee that we would return to Austin. In fact, we were cutting our ties to Austin. I DIDN'T LIKE THAT! I definitely didn't want that!

However, I prayed about it, and I got some surprising answers. God made it very clear that He thought it would be a good idea to move to England. He showed me that my contentment was in our church, not in HIM, and that this would be a growth period for me. The chance to grow spiritually was intriguing - exciting even; the fact that it was England (where Paul's family lives) was REALLY exciting. The fact that it was a "move away" move, and we wouldn't know if/when we were coming back, and where we would move when we came back - that part I didn't like AT ALL.


God made it clear, though, that He wanted us to do this, so I obeyed. With every step towards moving internationally, my heart broke a little more. The night before we left, I sobbed into Paul's arms and said I didn't know if I could do this.

Living in England was harder than I expected. I went full of hope thinking that maybe we would make a difference in people's lives.

Instead, I was alone most of the day, all day, everyday. The cost of living in Britain is high, and most women worked. There were a few things I could join but one by one, God closed the doors. I kept praying and over and over and cried out to God for help, and I heard His quiet whisper - this is about you and Me. God closed doors and forced me to work on our relationship. It was hard. It was very lonely. The weather was cool and rainy, day after day and year after year. It was constantly damp. It was dark from 3pm on for 3-4 months of the year. I would watch the sun fall over the horizon as I picked up the kids from school. It was like living in a cave from after school until the next morning. It was the loneliness that was so tough, though.

But then the sun began to shine. My quiet times with God were SO RICH and SO FULL. They were indescribable. I heard God talk to my heart on a DAILY BASIS. He was so close and so real. I'm forever changed by those days. When we moved to England, I thought we'd take 1 vacation a year, per the U.S. routine. I was BLOWN AWAY by all of the traveling we did! It was always my heart's desire to have our children understand life outside of the U.S. I NEVER expected it to be in the form of traveling all over Europe! Never!

It goes without saying that it was WONDERFUL to be close to all of Paul's family. COMPLETELY WONDERFUL. They were family, which was best of all, but they were also my lifeline to some social activity and it helped. All of us have made irreplaceable memories. Hopefully our children have been changed by having relatives so close by.

Facebook came into existence - or at least into my existence. I felt closer to our friends in Austin. Who knew that social networking would come to my life when I moved away?

3 years went by, and then we had an opportunity to move back......but it wasn't to Austin. Paul tried hard. His company understood....but the job was in California. California. ANOTHER one of my fears. What was God doing? Trying to knock down ALL of my fears? Maybe :) Need I talk about the extreme high cost of living in California, the poor schools, the liberal attitudes, the state taxes, the regulations? How about starting all over again in a new place? Honestly, I'm not a mover! I'm a PLANTER! What about our friends and our church? I OBEYED and went to England, why didn't God send us back to Austin? (He never promised to do that.)

We prayed, and Austin became a possibility. I heard God whisper Austin to me. Suddenly we had a chance to return to Austin! Our move to England would be all that I hoped for...an assignment! We prayed for God's will to happen. Then the door to Austin firmly closed. We didn't ask for Austin. We asked for God's will. See what a change had happened to me? Instead of asking for what I thought would be good for us, I asked for what God thought would be good for us. That's a BIG change. It's an IMPORTANT change.

I didn't expect what happened next. God kicked into high gear. We had looked at houses in California on-line. I knew we'd be paying almost 3X the cost of a house in Austin for a smaller, older house in California. It just seemed completely ridiculous. What a waste!

We had 3 days to find a house in the Silicon Valley area of Northern California. We gave the realtors our desires. I wrote them on a piece of paper in order of priority. I didn't dream big. I was realistic.

For the first time, I had to leave the kids and go to ANOTHER COUNTRY separated BY AN OCEAN without them. The most I had left them before was to a hotel downtown with Paul. I think we did that twice in 10 years. I had to pray a lot for this house-hunting trip across an ocean, to another country, without the kids. The kids did great! God gave us great childcare.

In our jet-lagged state, we slept far less than we needed on our 3 days away. We saw over 20 houses in 3 days. We prayed a lot. AND GOD SHOWED UP. Even though my heart wasn't in this move, GOD SHOWED UP. It was His will for our life that we go to California, and He gave me the shock of my life.

He provided the most amazing house. It took me a about 3 months after we moved to find my paper list of my realistic desires for a house in California...the list where I thought we might get our top 1-2 desires, to realize that God gave us EVERYTHING ON OUR LIST! He even gave us FAR MORE than our list! Our new house is TWICE the size that I thought we'd find. It is about 30 years newer than I dared hope for. It is a high end house, something I NEVER expected in California. It is in one of the top rated school districts in all of Northern California (That was #1 on our list). It is in a small, conservative town. The house and the town are completely beautiful (That was never on my list at all).

I still can't believe it.

The move was totally smooth. No problems anywhere. The kids sailed into their new schools and LOVED IT. I was the one pining away for the English school. (I still do sometimes, but I'm not going down that path again.) The older 3 kids made friends in a WEEK. All 3 of them. In one week, they had play dates and by the end of the 1st month, Kathryn had an invitation to a SLEEP OVER! My mind was MORE than boggled by God's goodness, mercy, graciousness and power.

Things were going so well that now I had a little bit of a struggle. This house was huge -much larger than either of our two previous houses. When our furniture arrived, it looked RIDICULOUS in this house. Hence my struggle. We had a huge amount of wide open spaces. It wasn't my desire to spend a bunch of money on furnishing the house; on the other hand, God provided the house. We felt sure He wanted us to pick this one. I prayed again, and I felt God saying that He gave this to us. It's OK for me to furnish it a little.

I prayed over and over that God would help me spend wisely; that I would honor Him with our spending. Paul looked at the numbers and gave me 'decorating' budget. Wait until you hear what all God did.

* I found TWO couches that were almost 1/2 the cost of what Paul and I discussed as a budget. Two for the price of one. You can't go wrong with that!
* I had a chair recovered to match one of the new couches. The material that the decorator suggested was out of stock. I walked away and prayed while she found some new choices. I picked one of the choices. She checked the price and it was 1/4 the original price.

* The week that I took the chair in to be re-upholstered, a coupon showed up in the mail for 20% off any re-upholstering.

* I fell in love with a kitchen table and 8 chairs, but I didn't want to pay that much. Months went by. One day I went into the store and that table was on sale. So were the chairs. So was the fabric that the decorator suggested for the chairs! The whole thing fit into our budget!

* When I got to the stage of hanging pictures, we had the EXACT RIGHT amount of pictures! There are no weird blank walls shouting for something on them, despite the much larger house (There are a lot of windows in this house).

* I found a framer to frame a couple of pictures that I had a local artist do for us when we left England. She matted the pictures and threw them in with the cost of the picture. It turned out to be FAR CHEAPER than paying for mats and frames in the U.S.

* Just before I took the pictures in to be framed, another coupon showed up for 15% off any frames at shop I picked.

* Even with 2 extra rooms, and much larger in size, we only had to buy 2 new lamps for the whole house.

* And, the thing I liked the best, after asking around, I found a decorator FOR FREE. I'm terrible at mixing and matching, and the free decorator took away a lot of stress.

There are even more things, but I think you get the idea.

None of it was me. All if it was God. I'm still in awe when I come home. We prayed over this house and asked that it would be a place that God uses for people to visit to feel His love.

The best part of all - the PEACE that comes from being where you are suppose to be. That peace is AMAZING. In England, I never worried about anything. Even now in California, where there are so many things I disagree with or don't want to expose the kids to, I don't worry. I have complete peace that this is God's will for us. God doesn't have to do this, but over and over, once I hear something that I don't like, my kids make statements that show me how GREAT God has been to protect them. I just keep praying.

God's will is a nice place to be. It's the BEST place to be. Now let's be honest. Has it been easy? NO. Has it been fun? NO. Has it been relaxing and full of happiness, NO, I've been exhausted. Do I daydream about our (previous) life in Austin. Yes. I'm as sinful and rebellious as the next person. Am I happy? Well, God doesn't promise us happiness. He promises us PEACE. I have peace. It was very clear that God wanted us in California. I have great peace that we are where we are suppose to be. It feels WONDERFUL! In fact, although it's been hard and tiring, following God's will for our lives has been THRILLINGLY AMAZING. I truly mean that! I have a peace that's beyond all understanding. It feels WONDERFUL! I look at all we did and I'm in SHOCK. God has been SO GOOD to us!

Life here isn't perfect. Paul is commuting 30 min to 1 1/2 hours each way every day. It's the first place that we've lived where he doesn't eat dinner with us regularly. He can't commit to anything for the various activities at the kids' schools, and I can't possibly do it all. Again, I could be critical of our life here, but I trust God. He is so good and so big and powerful....and He's done so much for us - so much that we don't deserve. I trust Him for our time here.

I'm thankful that Paul has a job! Since moving to California we've met A LOT of unemployed people. It scares me. I'm shocked and beyond amazed that we've had the experiences that we've had. None of it is us. It's all God.

All of the amazing things we've done - all of the beautiful places we've been......it has been God and not us that has initiated these things. We are far from perfect. We are totally sinful and completely undeserving of these things. God may choose to take them all away again. It's all His, and He can do that. If he does, it will be for our good. Right now, my heart is so full and so amazed that I want to give everything away. Really! Since we moved back to the U.S., we've upped our spending to the missionaries that we support. We gave a one time donation to a new set of missionaries. I'm trying to spend even less on groceries and life so that we can support more kids who don't have food to eat every day.

When those stubborn thoughts of Austin enter my mind, I ask God to help me let go and trust Him more. I BEG Him that we will not be distracted by what we want, but that God CLEARLY helps us hear His will for our lives.

Lastly, I ask Him that my will be aligned with His. He is good and all powerful. Praise God from whom all blessings flow! I wonder what God will do in your life if you trusted Him fully?

Next up, I have a couple of posts - one of a visit we had to Saratoga Springs, California, and one to "The Mystery Spot". Our adventures continue. It is AMAZING.

Spring visit to the Oakland As' game

This spring, the CA Macs had our first taste of t-ball. It was pretty exciting! Andrew had weekly practices and one game/week. I was truly shocked at the improvement that can happen. In the end, he earned the "most improved" award. He enjoyed it, but got a little burned out towards the end.

His coach was PHENOMENAL!!! We LOVED him! Our team was the NY Yankees.

The one thing that blindsided me was the cost. I think it was $130 for the 3 month "season". We opted out of working in the snack shop after learning that most parents do. I think it would have been fun to take our turn, but I was also overwhelmed with moving and received a lot of kind advice from moms that "everyone" opts out and just pays the extra $20 to opt out. We also had to buy the pants, belt, cleats and under shirt. I kind of swallowed hard, paid for everything and prayed that we could handle the extra "load" (time) and that this would be a good investment.

I was NOT prepared for the weekly request for extra items. California takes its t-ball/baseball VERY seriously! Each week for about 6 weeks, we had another request for $20. I think we had some sort of raffle, an "action shots photographer", a 2nd "team DVD action photographer" opportunity, a "shooting stars photo" (the normal "school type" pictures), a hitting/batting cage opportunity, a "night under the lights", along with the chance to purchase a Corporate A's suite in a paid raffle", and some sort of raffle baskets (this was mandatory)of some sort. Each "opportunity" cost another $20. Each week for about SIX weeks, I got another invitation for a $20 item. I held firm and said, "no" (except for the shooting stars photo). I was so overwhelmed. None of the other parents seemed to think this was crazy. Not one blinked an eye. I was completely relieved to hear from a friend in Austin that this did seem like overkill.

The one thing that we did 'splash out' on was a trip to the Oakland As where we got to watch the game and then Andrew got to run the professional bases afterwards. We had our choice of the SF Giants or the Oakland As. Since we are on the East side of the Bay, Oakland is closer to us, so we chose it. (More decisions)

There are SO many decisions to make when one has moved to a new city. My head hurts now just thinking of those hectic 6 months! It's one of those things where there probably isn't a "right" or "wrong" choice, just a personal preference.....but we didn't have a personal preference, so we just randomly chose so many things. We even had to decide WHERE to play baseball - the Granada little league or the indoor sports center. There were huge fans of both, and we knew nothing about either.

God ALWAYS provided in neat ways, ,though. I would run across a mom who had 4 older boys who knew a lot about one league, or Kathryn's new friend's mom ran a league at the indoor place. From very knowledgable comments from people, I could figure out which sounded more like "us".

4 months after we moved, 1 month after t-ball started, it was game day. We rode the BART to Oakland, a mere 20 minutes and watched the Oakland As play the Philadelphia Phillys. This is at the BART station near our house.
















We walked straight from the BART station across this bridge to the stadium.
















Then we walked down this ramp to our seats.















Our seats were AWESOME, but sadly ONE row lower than the shade! It was a hot day. By mid game though, the shade hit 1/2 our family. Whew!
















We had this view.
















It was an awesome game - Oakland won easily. The kids did far better than we expected.















By the end of the 7th inning, however, we felt the kids were beginning to lose interest. Paul threw out the suggestion that we leave early. I adamently vetoed it. We paid for this game so that Andrew could run the bases! Andrew was really excited about it! (He really was, or I would have given it up). Paul asked him if he wanted to stay and run the bases or leave now, and he firmly said he wanted to stay.

The As were way ahead. It looked like the Phillys had given up. The last 2 innings went very quickly. Strike 1, Strike 2, Strike 3, 1st guy was out. Even if a Philly got a hit, he would be out before he got to 1st base. I think the 1st 3 guys were out in a row. Then the As were back up to bat.

The game ended and the stadium emptied. We looked at each other. WHEN WERE THE KIDS GOING TO RUN THE BASES???? There were just so MANY things we didn't know as new people.

Paul had spotted another kid dressed in his uniform. I went over to talk to them. They knew all about it. The people in the know (pretty much everyone except us) had left in the 8th inning to line up. The family pointed to the opposite end of the stadium from where we were. That's where we were supposed to line up. We hurried towards the appropriate gate and saw the beginning of kids already streaming out onto the field to run around the bases. Our adrenoline flowed. We raced. We were at THE END of the line. The line WRAPPED AROUND THE STADIUM. This is us, at the end of the line.














Again, Paul suggested aborting. Again we polled Andrew, and he firmly wanted to do it. I suggested the line would move quickly.

There were beautiful spring flowers to see while we waited. They are different from the TX bluebonnets (see my continuous struggle?), but they are beautiful all the same. How nice for God to put them there!















Thankfully, the line did move quickly. In 20 min, we were at the front of the line, and discovered that all 4 of our kids were able to run the bases! They had this thing streamlined. They directed the kids down the steps, and had Paul and I get out of the line and directed us to home base. Wait! What about John! He's only 4! There are probably 10,000 kids all hurrying down the steps towards home plate! We yelled to Megan to STAY WITH JOHN, and bless her little heart, she was wonderful. She held John's hand and kept track of him all the way around the bases, running at his speed. We are trying to remember that at Kathryn's age, Megan was so responsible. We're working on Kathryn but she's not the eldest and maybe she doesn't feel that ownership. She is better....but in a crisis (like the man pushing our children away from us further along the fast moving line and us out of the line), we tend to shout "Megan" to give her our desparate instructions....and she's so good and always comes through in a pinch. There she is, running with John.














Andrew is between 1st and 2nd, in a blue and white shirt. He's ahead of the kid in the yellow shirt.















They emerged at home plate, where Paul and I were standing, as directed. It was SO NEAT! They were all thrilled!

It was a fun day, another unexpected opportunity.

My next entry is from the heart, and talks about these opportunities we've been given.

Father's Day - Great America

A collegue of Paul's offered him some discount tickets to California's Great America Theme Park. We have been going so strong for so long that I hesitated.....and it was Father's day. Did he really want to spend it at a theme park? "YES", my energizer bunny husband said! Since his collegue offered on a Sunday, we went to church on Saturday night, benefit of a mega church. We started at 10am at the park. We were excited!















We had a GREAT day. The Peanuts gang is the general theme of the park. Andrew gave Snoopy a BIG hug.















Andrew is so tender. If any future girlfriend dares to hurt him, she'll be hearing from me!!! (Can't believe I'm even thinking of these things, but seeing how fast they went from 1, 3, 5 and 7 to 4, 6, 8 and 11, those days are RIGHT around the corner!).

Andrew was a SMIDGE too short for any of the "good" rides. He handled it SO well. Fortunately, they had some roller coasters for kids his age, and he JUST made it onto Psycho Mouse, a bigger kids roller coaster. (this picture is of yet a different roller coaster)














The park wasn't crowded and we were able to more or less walk up to a ride and ride it. The water rides had a little longer wait.

We did some of the big rides first. It was Father's Day after all, and Paul went on some giant roller coasters. He loved it. Then we hit the kiddie area. Believe it or not, all of our kids loved all of the rides! We actually spent quite a bit of time there. Megan was EXCELLENT in going on rides with John and showing enthusiasm and excitement for him. He loved it!














After the kiddie area and lunch, we headed for the water area. First they had a couple of watery things where you walked/climbed/slid through them and got wet randomly.














Turns out the water was pretty cold and California is not overflowing with heat. It was in the low 80s, but cool air with a breeze, so they spent about 10 min on the spray water things and wanted to head for the actual water park.

Paul and Andrew did the soaker ride. It was a round, yellow raft that floated down a flume and generally soaked you along the way. They came out drenched. They loved it.

Our whole family did the logger ride. I had NO desire to get wet, seeing that it was not too hot. I'm all for comfort, especially when everyone turns to me for comfort! I'll be a lot better at helping console/dress/dry/feed/care for a person if I am feeling comfortable. I carefully kept an eye on the logger ride while waiting for Paul and Andrew to do the soaker ride and I decided that the people were splashed, not too wet for comfort. It WAS really fun!

Then we headed for the lazy river.













Again, the water was cool and although it was a beautiful day, it was by no means "hot" in my books, so I watched while everyone went on the lazy river. I also got several chuckles. Andrew had some crisis with his ring and Paul was trying to help him and keep John safe at the same time. Neither of us anticipated the crisis, so Paul and John were already in the current and Andrew was in danger of being left behind. Paul did a FANTASTIC job of handling that. Megan came around first and just went right on around again. Kathryn showed up next and she noticed that Andrew was off of his ring and trying to fight through the current by struggling. She pulled him "ashore". Then Paul and John showed up. Paul stopped them and motioned for me to switch places with him. I motioned that I was quite happy staying with the stroller and backpack and for him to enjoy himself.














He was so happy to hear that, and then another snafu happened. Andrew happily headed back out and was "carded". He was "caught" by the pole police - the people who hold a pole next to you to see if you are allowed on a ride or not. The girl pole holder thought he was too short. The boy pole holder explained that it was "yellow" that was too short, not light blue. They had a quick discussion. The boy won, and Andrew was allowed to head out again. Whew. The poor boy was SO GOOD when being told "yes" or "no". He did have some disappointments, and shed a few tears, but he controlled himself and allowed us to get him excited about the next ride. His height was SO borderline. Next summer he'll be high enough for sure!

It was already 5pm when everyone finished the lazy river, but they headed immediately for the wave pool. I was thinking that this day was going to end in a giant meltdown, but I went along for the ride.

We left the park at 6 with everyone still in a good humor. At dinner we discussed favorite/not favorite rides and what it would be like to work at Great America. Kathryn pointed out how "boring" it would be - reading the same announcement over and over and over during the whole day. Hopefully we got her excited about the reason to go to college - not because high school grads work at the park (college people work there too, obviously), but it lent itself to a discussion about the opportunity for people who choose education vs. the more limited opportunities for those who don't.

Per usual, our kids didn't fall asleep during the 40 min drive back until the last 5 min. We even allowed 1 of them to skip the tooth brushing routine, and I prayed the shortest prayer for them I've EVER prayed at night!

Happy Father's Day, my wonderful husband! We love you, and we love how much you love us!!!