I don't even know how to start this post, this first journal entry so to speak. I'm a bit rusty on blogging, it's been a long time since I did this sort of thing. I just feel I need to type and get everything off my chest before we are officially in the year 2021. Here goes ... it may be a bit rambling, I apologize ahead of time.
Today is December 31, 2020, the year of craziness, the year of awakenings, the year of realizations, and the year of prioritizing. Up until the big Q, the Great Pause (Quarantine) we were perfectly fine with living our life as a rat, doing the neverending deeds we do as parents, teachers, and members of our community. It's just part of life to keep acquiring, staying busy, and giving what's leftover to our family, right? This is the American Dream for most people, living in a nice house in the 'burbs, having 2 working cars, 2 incomes, and providing everything and then some to our family. We have nothing to complain about but yet still feel lacking. Why? I feel like God has called us to do more with our lives, He has given us gifts to help others, He has guided us through horrible times where we don't see or know why we had to go through that. I've been through so much loss in my adult-life, scary times too where I've seen my life flash before my eyes but He has been there always.
Jeremiah 29:11 comes to mind here, "For I know the plans I have for you", declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."
The year 2020 has had little nuggets of blessings where we can see beyond the darkness and pit we feel like we are living in. God has given us a new vision for our family for 2021 and beyond. It all started with tears almost nightly in the shower for me once school started again, realizing I needed more for my life and family and that life is just too short to keep on this spinning wheel and not getting off. My dream was to move to the mountains of North Carolina which is our happy place, we've been vacationing there for 4 years and have the best time as a family when we do. Life is simple in the mountains, life is happy and life is treasured there. Yes, I know that's how most vacations feel but being from Vermont I need mountains in my life. We found out it would upset our oldest whenever we would dream-out-loud about moving there and we stopped talking about it.
I cried out to God one particular night in the shower, hiding my tears in the water, and asked Him to take that desire away from me (it's all I thought about almost daily) if it wasn't what He wanted for us. A few days later, our oldest told us, "if we move to NC, all the magic will be gone." She's right, NC would no longer be a magical place for us. We started talking more about what we loved about our trips, it was learning new things, seeing new places, and spending quality time together as a family. The next few days I realized I wasn't obsessing about moving to NC or daydreaming about it, He took it away, my prayer was answered. What I didn't realize is that He would give us an amazing dream that we would all be on board with. It's such a crazy idea but it fits our family so much, goes against the norm and we know it's a God thing because of all the different people who have casually mentioned what we all had been talking about at home to us at random times. When He gave us the idea and vision I had song lyrics from "Child of God" running through my head for 3 days straight but just one line of it, "who the Son sets free, oh is free indeed, I'm a child of God, yes I am". I don't know about you but He definitely talks to us through songs around here. I’ll tell you what, my heart was light and I felt like I was glowing with this renewed vision, through all the darkness of 2020 I have a light at the end of the tunnel. I am not quite ready to reveal what our new plan is but steps are being taken to go in that direction. Stay tuned.
