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This quote has been in my Bible since last fall:

“Today let’s choose to trust God and not require that we like or even understand what He is calling us to do. Let’s submit to Him, believing that the path He calls us to take will always be worth the change, worth the risk, worth the effort, simply because He has chosen it for us.” ~Allison Strobel

This path I’ve been on the last 8 months has challenged me in ways I didn’t know I could be, it has caused me growing pains, it has given me so much joy, it has lead me to make new life long friends, it has given me times of rest, and it has sent me down a completely new path. I feel like Dorthy in the Wizard of Oz. Only there is no going back to Kansas, at least not any time soon.

At the end of the day, I am very thankful for this new path. Yes, I often kicked because we didn’t know where we would be living next, but I have received so many blessings I wouldn’t have had we stayed in our old house and circumstances.

At the top of that list has to be friends. If we had stayed in Oklahoma, I wouldn’t have become friends with the ladies in our church play group in Hawaii. I cannot tell you how much I have come to love those ladies and how blessed I’ve been by the friendships that have come out of those few months. It’s amazing how God blesses you with just the right people at the right time.

On returning to Oklahoma, I’ve also gotten to know some ladies here better, who I wouldn’t know well if we had stayed in the part of this city we were in. I’m so thankful that despite not knowing what was next, I didn’t hold back, but instead jumped into getting to know my friends here better. I’ve have been really blessed by their friendships in the last few months.

I’ve also been blessed by time with my kids. Taking care of a house you own takes a lot of time and energy. Whereas small apartments, though I have missed our backyard a lot, don’t carry near as much responsibility. This fact has given me more time to play with the boys, teach them, and to take them places that we wouldn’t have gotten to enjoy otherwise.

This path as also lead me to writing more. Again, with the time it took to invest in a house, I didn’t have as much time to write or make it a priority. Now it’s become part of my daily routine that I miss dearly if I don’t do it.

I have no idea where God is leading us right now. At the moment we only know a few more months ahead, but I do look forward to seeing where He takes us. I can’t say that with a smile everyday. As you well know, I have hard days where I’m livid that this path looks nothing like I thought it would a year ago. I have days where despite the benefits I see, I miss owning a home dearly.

But at the end of the day, I do know, at least in my head if it doesn’t always make it to my heart, that God’s path is best. When we follow where God leads, he doesn’t promise it will be easy, but He does promise to take care of us and that at then end of the day it will lead us home.