The Write 31 Days Challenge – 31 Days,Every Day,One Topic
Day 28
(day 1 starts here)
A little over four years ago we had a fairly sudden uprooting from our home in Washington state. If you didn’t follow this blog then you can read all about it in Life Interrupted.
The thought of moving cross country from the Northwest to the Southeast was exciting but there was also the sadness of leaving our church, our friends, and our lake house. I wrote about that in Shades of Green and a New Thing.
At the end of August 2014 we made the 6-day trek to South Carolina (two people and three dogs) to the new home we’d chosen just outside Greenville. It felt like the perfect home, our beautiful Southern Colonial, and we expected to stay put for many years.
Then we got a boat.
Boats belong on lakes, not in wooded backyards like ours, so we took that boat out exploring as often as we could. Lake Hartwell, Lake Keowee, Lake Jocassee… When once you’ve been a lake girl (at that time I’d lived on a total of three different lakes in my lifetime) the water always calls your name. And it did that big time! We had some really hard stuff happen during those three years and it always felt like all my cares blew away as soon as we hit the water.
I wrote HERE in The Post That Surprises Even Me about the chance happenings that brought us to the decision to build a brand new lake house out in the country but still just 30 minutes from downtown Greenville. I loved reading it again today to remind myself how God’s hand is in everything.
I ended that post by saying that I hoped you’d come along with me on my “What’s next?” journey so it’s funny that I entitled today’s post The Next New Thing. Total coincidence by the way, but I haven’t written much since then (until this month) and I certainly never got back to sharing that journey I invited you on.
So what is next? I thought the next thing for us was going to happen as soon as we moved to the Greenville area but it never seemed to be. We went through times of wondering what our purpose was here but we never felt fully settled where we were for reasons unknown to us. So I satisfied myself with the fact that I was writing and Kelly decided that his job was to support me in that.
Looking back now I realize that the reason we didn’t feel fully settled or ready to jump into the next thing is because God had the next thing waiting right here for us in this new community Click To Tweet Not the one we first moved to. He knows the end from the beginning and He knew a move was in our future, so it wasn’t time yet to get too attached to where we were. I wonder now if it wasn’t also in God’s plan for us to have a time of rest before the next thing?
This place y’all. I’ve never moved to a place where I had a group of awesome, authentic, and life giving friends so quickly. And our new church? We’ve been here just under seven months and we are certain we’ve found our place.
We’ve opened our home to many new friends and just last week we started our first Life Group in our home. Don’t tell anyone but we have the best Life Group in the church! I’ve also begun leading a group for women through a study called Betrayal and Beyond, which I find coincidental since I just shared that part of our journey for the first time publicly here on this blog! There are some other opportunities that we are praying about doing as a couple that will work with Kelly’s intense work schedule but for now, it feels really good to be involved in church and to be able to give back just a little.
God never intends to bless us so that we can keep the blessing all to ourselves. Click To TweetWe are grateful to God that in our new community we’ve been welcomed so quickly, appreciated just as we are, and invited to share in giving back. I do believe it’s only just the beginning!
Wishing you abundant blessings today,
Tomorrow is Day 29, The Day the Church Asked for my Forgiveness. Talk about a full circle day! The day after tomorrow I have a surprise in store for you!
You can pick up this whole story on Day 1 – My Life is Not a Hallmark Movie.
I’ve been known to link up to the following great parties!!!
Sunday:
SundaysAtHome, LifeOnLakeshoreDrive, SilverPenniesSundays, RusticAndRefined, Spiritual Sundays
Monday:
IShouldBeMoppingTheFloor, TheDedicatedHouse, Dwellings, ProjectInspired, InspireMeMonday, CelebrateYourStory, What Joy is Mine/Monday Musings, Darling Downs Diaries, The Art of Homemaking, MomentsOfHope, Glimpses, SittingAmongFriends, InspireMeMonday, GodSizedDreams
Tuesday:
TalkOfTheTown, HomeStoriesAtoZ, AStrollThruLife, CoastalCharm, CedarHillFarmhouse, TuesdaysAtOurHome, TheWinthropChronicles, Rich Faith Rising Unite Linky, Testimony Tuesday,Cheerleaders of Faith,Tell His Story
Wednesday:
SavvySouthernStyle, A Wise Woman Builds Her Home, Woman to Woman Word Filled Wednesdays, Coffee for Your Heart, MessyMarriage, ThreeWordWednesday, WriterWednesday
Thursday:
ShareYourStyle, ImpartingGrace, EmbracingChange, HaveADailyCupOfMrsOlson, MyRepurposedLife, ADelightsomeLife, KatherinesCorner, Thought Provoking Thursday, SincerelyPaulas, ThoughtfulThursday, Tune-inThursday
Friday:
FrenchCountryCottage, TheCharmOfHome, TheDedicatedHouseAnythingBlueFriday, ShabbyliciousFriday, Faith’nFriends, Dance With Jesus FreshMarketFriday
Saturday:
FunkyJunkInteriors, SaturdaySparks, TheInspirationGallery, Make My Saturday Sweet
Patti,I am reading your “story”….you are mighty brave woman. I hope so much you are on the road to recovery. I live in Greenville and we recently sold our place on Lake Keowee,it all sounds so familiar. Just take care of you first,sounds as if that’s a learning process you are dealing with. Take care.
Hi Shirley! Thank you for taking the time to comment on my blog. I have had so much recovery in my life, years and years of it now, but God always has new growth available to us. Growing can be hard, even painful, but I believe that if we aren’t growing we can’t really be happy because God made us for growth! It is quite a conumdrum isn’t it? LOL!