It dawned on me last week that I have a story I want to tell. I wish I were better with words, to clearly put down on my blog the events that took place in my life a year ago, to tell this story properly.
I never know who actually reads my blog, or what is taken from it, but I do know that things happen in life so that we can help each other along and encourage one another.
2 Corinthians 1:3 & 4 (New International Version)
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
My story starts in a field.
There was a wonderful field by my house in Michigan. It was supposed to have been a public park, where festivals were held, and ball games played, but the city ran out of money and it was just a field with a walking track around it. Very unpopulated, it was the perfect place for me to begin my journey of walking daily, and building up to running without anyone seeing me while I progressed. All I had to do was walk up the street, and turn right into the field. My dog loved it, I loved it, and I found it to be a great place to get alone with my ipod and praise music.
I had my girls help me load some good songs into an old ipod that they did not want anymore, and found that I loved to crank the music up loud and run my two miles in peace and quiet. They laughed at me every time I was going for a walk and would ask one of them if they knew where I had put my "walkman". "Mom, it's an Ipod, not a walkman!", then look at each other like I was so out of their decade.
I knew that my husband had been struggling with his career, and lack of job satisfaction. He had worked for a large corporation for 10 years, but took an offered buy out when the economy took a bad turn in Michigan. He was now employed by a small company, and truly knew that he was just not a fit for the current job he was in. To put it mildly, he was completely miserable going to work every day. At the same time, we were just so thankful that he had employment at all.
So as I would run, I would pray for him. I had also just started a bible study that was very encouraging to me. The topic of my online study was God's promises to us for being faithful to him. I was learning great stuff. Here I was in my field; running, and burning off the stress from my own work I did at home. On this particular weekday morning, I was just about to round up my second mile when a song I had heard several other times came into my ears, and instead of taking the last turn towards home, I took one more lap so that I could enjoy these beautiful lyrics by Matthew West:
There you go changing my plans again
There you go shifting my sands again
For reasons I don't understand again
Lately I don't have a clue
Just when I start liking what I see
There you go changing my scenery
I never know where you're taking me
But I'm trying just to follow you
As I ran, my heart started to race more than normal, and tears started to stream down my cheeks a bit. I knew, in the deep part of my gut that we were moving for my husband to get a better job. I can't really describe to you an actual voice, or anything more than just a very strong feeling. Still I knew.
You who don't know me need a little bit of history at this point. #1. I had moved away as a young married gal, and had finally gotten to move back HOME in my home town, near family. #2. I had worked for 10 solid years building myself quite a successful business in our community, and at this point, I only wanted to grow it even bigger. #3. I was loving my church family more than ever. A decade of raising kids and fellowship, and love. Oh, and I also should tell you that my house was just exactly the way that I wanted it. Suffice to say, I didn't want to go anywhere, but God spoke to me on that August afternoon, just about a year ago, and told me it was time for us to move.
More coming soon.
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