Stablished, Strengthened, Settled

Twists and turns, wilderness and detours. Where to begin? When we sold everything and hit the road in December, we honestly didn’t know where we were going. We just knew it was time to move on.

If you know me at all, you know I’m not huge on change or uncertainties. In fact, if there was one thing I never wanted to hear my husband say, ever, in a million years, it was “let’s sell everything and live on the road, in an RV.”

I used to live in mortal fear of that notion becoming a serious one.

But God had been working something in me. He had been teaching me about roots and the things that give us security that aren’t truly secure. He had been teaching me not to anchor in circumstances or places or people. He was teaching me that anyone rooted in those things will find themselves in dust and ashes if and when they crumble.

𝘏𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘮𝘺 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘪𝘹𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱𝘰𝘯 𝘏𝘪𝘮.

So, in spite of all my natural dread of upheaval, I handed that to the Lord, and I was able to relinquish the world I had known and loved for 5 years, and everything familiar, for totally uncharted territory and months of uncertainty.

I suppose, I had this idea, in the back of my mind, that all roads lead somewhere and it was only a matter of time, before God put us “somewhere.” I know it’s silly, but I saw the RV as an “ark”. I didn’t know what the future held, but I’d climb inside and ride, and I would trust that God would guide us. As we meandered through the country, at some point, we’d stumble on the place He wanted us to be.

I didn’t know how we’d know, but I figured when it was time, God would let us know.

Of course, I didn’t realize it in the beginning, but I had certain ideas of what that place would look like and what it wouldn’t look like.

This area, wherever it would be, would have certain elements, 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺.

I couldn’t imagine, even the remote possibility, that God’s will would not contain things I thought would be an absolute given.

The crazy thing is, we were barely on the road when our *actual* traveling came to a screeching halt…

In a place where none of those things were.

I scrambled to wrap my mind around the utter irony, that this journey was “supposed” to be about figuring out where we wanted to settle, and yet I wound up stranded in a place that had none of the things I expected to see.

But 𝘎𝘰𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦.

𝘏𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘏𝘪𝘮.

Trust Him, even when circumstances look nothing like what you think they are supposed to look like.

Trust Him, when you don’t know what He’s doing.

Trust Him when things are the absolute opposite of what you thought they would be.

Just stop trying to figure everything out…

𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘏𝘪𝘮.

So I tried to do that.

When we found out we were expecting, and then we found out I have the blood clot in my brain, and we realized I needed a consistent team of good doctors, I understood we’d be stationary for a while.

Mark made sure I got the best doctors he could find, and set me up in the best facilities in the area.

But I couldn’t shake the mentality, that where we landed was a type of wilderness for me.

Those things I hoped for, thought for sure I’d see, were not here.

So I looked ahead for the exit.

In spite of believing that God would guide our steps and put us where He wanted us, I felt that this surely couldn’t be the place God wanted us…

I made rough calculations in my mind. The baby was due in August, and having been through a blood clot in the brain once before, I estimated that if I took the blood thinners faithfully, that it would be resolved by the end of the pregnancy, and then there would be six weeks postpartum for a final checkup…

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺.

We’d be on our way again by October.

I looked forward to that. I felt like once we hit the road again, we’d find the “real” place God wanted us to be.

In the meantime, I would do my best to endure the detour. I would be strong… I would be brave… I would try my best to learn what God wanted me to learn in the wilderness… and then He’d usher us on to some proverbial version of a ‘promised land.’

But things kept shifting.

I kept getting sick. I kept getting infections. I kept losing my hearing. I kept winding up at the hospital and in the offices of more and more specialists. My body was struggling. I felt like my life was ebbing away. I was battling with high fevers with no apparent cause, and fighting for air for no apparent reason. My body was freaking out with the slightest movements, stressed by the most basic things like eating and standing, and turning over in bed.

In all the hubbub, it was verified that I had SLE Lupus, and that it was severe. My body was in an extreme state of inflammation. Several organs were being attacked at once and struggling in a variety of ways. And after the baby was born, and things were stable, I’d need surgery on my ears to restore my hearing. It made sense to have that done this year, since we had already met the insurance deductibles. That would put us in the middle of winter. But I knew we wouldn’t leave San Antonio in the winter, because traveling in an RV means you have to follow the warm weather.

Trying to navigate the RV while sick and weak highlighted an awareness that recovering from a c-section in the RV wasn’t something that was feasible. We realized we would have to rent an apartment temporarily and apartments usually come with a minimum of a six-month lease.

The “exit date” kept moving and I kept wondering why on earth God would bring us here and leave us here.

It seemed like San Antonio, in spite of making zero sense to me, kept stretching into the future.

I didn’t understand.

I just clung to the knowledge that if I trusted the Lord, He was indeed guiding our steps. Even if nothing made sense, there was a reason for the holdover.

I didn’t know what it was, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘎𝘰𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘥.

All I really knew, was that it wasn’t my job to figure it all out.

My job was to simply trust Him.

To let Him be Lord.

To surrender my feeble understanding and lean on His omniscience and sovereignty.

So I did that.

And I just kept plugging onward.

I kept seeking my contentment from Him, and I kept striving toward regaining my physical strength, and I kept going to my appointments…

And then a couple weeks ago, I went into the Rheumatologist’s office to go over bloodwork.

I didn’t expect much. They had me on blood thinners. They had me on lupus medication. I figured all this craziness stopped there.

But it didn’t.

The bloodwork was ugly.

Inflammation was raging…

Organs were struggling…

Levels were extreme and all over the place…

And then she broke the news to me.

𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘴.

I’m not sure it even registered at the time.

She threw around some big words and some scary words and for a brief bit of time, my brain froze. Nothing she said really sunk in. Th𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦…

𝘐’𝘮 33 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘭𝘥. 𝘐’𝘷𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘺𝘴. 𝘈 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘺 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺… 𝘢 𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥…

She gave a brief explanation of what these cells could mean. (We still don’t know for sure yet, but Mark and I are optimistic for a best-case scenario.)

She gave a brief explanation of what had to be done to protect my organs from the raging Lupus.

She explained they had me on everything they could give me while I was pregnant, but after the baby was born, I needed to begin an at-home chemo drug for the Lupus. The goal is to “deactivate” the immune system so it will stop attacking and wreaking havoc on my organs.

She warned that it was nasty, that I’d be very sick while I took it, that I’d lose a lot of my hair, that my immune system would be so weak that I should not even change my baby’s diapers.

And… she gave me a referral to the oncologist, to further investigate and treat whatever these cells turn out to mean.

As Mark and I sat on this, and processed it, and prayed about it, we came to some important conclusions. Doctors warned that I was not in any shape to move around and that we needed to stay put. And we have great doctors (probably the best I’ve ever had) and great facilities in San Antonio. We needed to stay with them, and let them find answers and monitor everything. We needed to prepare to make as many things go as smoothly as possible. We needed to simplify routines and we needed to create an environment of normalcy, for our children and even ourselves.

Mark spoke with certainty,… “I really think we need to rent a house.”

And in spite of all my waiting… of all my hoping for an exit from the city that made no sense… the city of my wilderness… in spite of all my calculations and feeble attempts to understand why we weren’t leaving… and when we would leave and wondering why God wasn’t taking us somewhere that made more sense to me…

𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵.

For whatever reason, God put us in this city and He has kept us in the city, and He is continuing to keep us in this city…

And I realized… either I truly believe He is guiding our steps… 𝘰𝘳 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵…

So, I put it in His hands.

If we must stay, and it was truly His will, the dominoes would fall into place.

I sat outside in my rocking chair one afternoon, processing all the twists and turns and moving parts…

𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘏𝘪𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘴.

“Lord… I trust You. I don’t know what You are up to, but You know what we need.”

At that point, the baby was due to arrive by early c-section in 13 weeks. There was an awful lot that had to happen before she came.

I listed three things in particular, that we needed, that had to unroll quickly. Things that presented a daunting challenge.

The next three days, those three things unrolled in rapid succession.

It was as if they rolled straight into our laps.

In spite of the current obstacles and how elusive each of these things were, God brought them to pass.

And yesterday, we were approved for a home. It had everything I asked God for. An office for Mark, a gated backyard for the boys, quiet places for the baby, a designated area for a school room, a spacious kitchen… and a quick move in date.

When Mark told me, I sobbed. I couldn’t help but think about how God’s eye was on the smallest sparrow.

You know… I can’t explain it.

In spite of everything looming ahead, in spite of the unknowns… I have a perfect peace.

I feel a strength that has undergirded me, that is not my own.

I have no fear.

I have no anxiety.

I have no need to understand what God is doing…

I am simply filled with a peace… a total and complete trust… that He is Lord over my life, and sovereign over all my affairs.

That I can walk into this chapter, with confidence, for no other reason, than that HE IS LORD.

𝗛𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗠𝗬 𝗟𝗼𝗿𝗱.

As we prepare to move into our new home, to sell the truck and RV, and to close this chapter of our lives…

I can’t help but think… maybe this whole journey….

Maybe it never was about finding a “place” to settle…

𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘏𝘪𝘮.

——————–

“𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘰𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘺 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘑𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘴, 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦, 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵, 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩, 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯, 𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶.” – 1 𝘗𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳 5:10