to begin again.

A whirlwind.  That's the best way I could describe the last many weeks - or really, months.  Even having lived it, I find myself in disbelief at times.  If you've not kept up, the fast version would be as follows...

God placed on our hearts that it was time to leave San Diego.  In the meantime, I met the man I had been praying for and decided to visit his hometown in Iowa.  While visiting, I just knew this was where we were supposed to be.  We listed our home and it sold in two days, so my dad and I traveled back to Iowa to find a new home.  We found the perfect home that was listed the day before we flew out.  We returned home with three weeks until our California escrow closed and ended up sick with Covid for the entirety of those three weeks.  I never got to return to work, but thankfully had the opportunity to go back one last Sunday to say goodbye to what was my home and refuge the past 2 years.  As my Pastor said on my last Sunday, "take a minute and let it sink in.  Melissa is moving from San Diego to Iowa.  It has to be God."  In all seriousness, he sent me on my way in all faith and blessing of our new journey.  I've heard countless times since moving here that "people don't choose to move to Keokuk.  God calls people to Keokuk."  That's the best way I can explain it.  It just feels right.  We spent five days traveling cross country and moved into a rent home until our Iowa escrow closed.  The boys began school two days after arriving here.  In the following two weeks, I began my new job, got engaged, and planned a wedding.  We got married.  We spent this past weekend moving all our belongings from the rent house and two storage facilities into our new {hopefully forever} home.  JJ noted we've lived in four different homes this past year, so you can imagine we are ready to be settled.

New, new new.  He makes all things new, does He not?  I struggle to put into words what my heart feels.  It feels like disbelief, and yet that is limiting the goodness of my God.  Won't He do it.  I've heard the saying I remember the days I prayed for the things I have now.  I recall all the sleepless nights.  The mornings my eyes were swollen shut and my head ached.  The hours upon hours of crying and praying.  Every Scripture and promise I claimed, prayed, and held onto for dear life.  All of the things spoken over me by the dear people who walked me through my darkest season.  I have seen it all come to pass.  My flesh wants to say I cannot believe it.  But my Spirit trusts and believes in the power of my God.  I truly stand in awe.  There is no formation of words I could put on a page that would give justice to the beauty He has created from the ashes.  I can give my best effort and yet it could never suffice.  I have tasted and I have seen that the Lord is good.  I want to shout it from the rooftops.

Nothing we've done has been small.  This has been the biggest of life events one after the other.  But I can say, there is complete peace when you step out in faith.  No matter how big or how crazy it seems, when God is with you, that is all you need.  He will not call you to something that He has not already gone ahead of you and prepared in advance for you to do.  Oh the things we likely miss due to a lack of faith.  That is not the life I want to live.  Never have I resonated more with Paul's words,  "not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." My heart's desire is to follow His call.  Whatever the cost.  

In the past month, I've seen joy radiating from my children.  I've seen them at peace.  I've seen a new freedom.  I do not discount that change is difficult and they've had their moments - as have I - but we keep coming back to the place of God called us here.  If this is where God called us, this is exactly where we are supposed to be.   There is a plan and purpose in all of it.  Friendships take time.  New schools and new jobs take time.  Stability takes time.  But God's call brings peace.

It's the same place I came to over a year ago when I found myself starting over in a state of helplessness.  When at first I wanted to run and be anywhere else, I had to come to the realization that peace is a person.  When we are walking with and communing with Him, peace is found in the darkest of days.  The peace that passes all understanding is just that - it doesn't make sense from an outside perspective, but only when you're in it, because He is right there with you.  I learned that if I was called, I was also equipped.  I can do all things.  I don't say that flippantly.  There are so many Scriptures that are easy to quote, but the difference from my past and my present is that I can now with one hundred percent certainty say it and believe it.  I know it to be true.  All glory to God.  

Life is a journey.  I've said it so many times, I imagine some may tire of hearing it.  I look back and see each step and marvel at it.  Every year I pray for a word for the upcoming year.  Two years ago, God gave me lyrics to a song - "I stand with arms high and heart abandoned..." and did it ever foreshadow what was to come.  For this year the word God impressed upon my heart was renew.  I reread the words I wrote.  "Renew means, to make like new; to restore, to begin again.  Pressing forward into 2020, I believe this word to be true.  With all my heart.  And I believe that, because I believe the promises of His Word.  I believe and have stood on the promise that "He works all things for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose."  Obviously, I will not understand the fullness of what this means until I am looking back on it.  But, I believe a new season is coming.  I can see the promise..."

Now, I'm standing on it.