Now to Him Who is Able....But Even If He Doesn't...

I feel compelled to type a follow up to my blog from yesterday.  Because I feel like some of you are out there saying, "Oh that is great for you, Christy, but God isn't doing anything for me."  I get that.  I've written plenty of blog posts about times when things haven't gone as planned, when we were discouraged, afraid, sad, lonely, and wondering why God was being so quiet in our lives.  In fact we have prayed through a few situations within this move and with foster care and the details didn't work out.  Another thing I wanted to point out is some of the things God worked out were prayed about for YEARS, some were recent prayers.  These answers to prayer were God affirming we were going the direction He was leading and we are thankful for that affirmation.  But other times we haven't quite known why some things were happening.

So this is the post for those of you that are in a period where you have been praying for something to happen.  You know God is able but he just isn't answering your prayer the way you are asking Him to.  You didn't get the job you wanted.  You can't sell your house.  Your friend/family member is sick and can't get well.  Something is too hard.  You are at your wits end on a situation and the pressure just won't let up.  Is God still able?  Can He fix all of the problems in your life?  Of course He is and of course He can, but sometimes He doesn't.  I want to encourage you today!  Continue to pray, continue to give your anxieties to Him, keep trusting.  You know I've posted many blogs about God asking us to wait, sometimes you have to wait, sometimes weeks, sometimes months, sometimes years.  Sometimes God allows something hard to stay in your life.  Sometimes bad things happen and we just don't understand why.  I'd like to share some thoughts from a previous blog that I hope will give encouragement.  Keep trusting!  God is with you!  During the hard times and the times we don't understand here are some things we do know and we can cling to.  The following is an excerpt from a blog post, read the whole thing here.

We do know that God is good.  Psalm 100:5 “For the Lord is good, and His love is eternal;  His faithfulness endures through all generations.”  (Mark 10:18 Jesus says, “No one is good but One – God”; 

We do know that God has a plan for us that cannot be thwarted. (Thus discounting the did _________ do something wrong)  Job 42:2  “I know that You can do anything and no plan of Yours can be thwarted”  (See also Psalm 139:14-16, Jeremiah 1:5)

We know that sometimes we will experience trials of many kinds and we must count them as joy, understanding that the testing of our faith produces endurance, so that we can become mature and complete, lacking in nothing.  (James 1:2-4)

We are to bring glory to God in everything we say and do.  Psalm 117:1 says, “Praise the Lord, all nations!  Glorify Him, all people!”  and I love what King Nebuchadnezzar says in Daniel 4:37 “….praise, exalt, and glorify the King of heaven, because all His works are true and His ways are just….” 

We know God is faithful!  (Psalm 36:5; Psalm 91:4; Lamentations 3:23 – I could go on forever with this one so if you need more proof let me know!)

So if you are waiting on God to answer something, hang in there.  He is able but sometimes he says no or wait.  We don't know why but we know He has a reason and all for His glory.  God is always faithful, good times and bad. He will never leave us. He offers salvation to all who call upon the name of Jesus. He doesn't always promise us easy times but he always gives us the grace we need for the tough times. Pray that God will give you peace that passes all understanding in whatever situation you are in and the strength to keep going, even when it is tough.  

Here are a few more of my posts talking about when we don't understand, when we need encouragement...

http://danielandchristy.blogspot.com/2011/04/hes-always-been-faithful.html

http://danielandchristy.blogspot.com/2009/02/remembering-gods-faithfulness.html

http://danielandchristy.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-silence-of-god.html

http://danielandchristy.blogspot.com/2011/01/waiting-room-2.html

http://danielandchristy.blogspot.com/2011/05/ups-and-downs-of-adoption-and-secret-to.html

Now to Him Who is Able....

This is a long story with many details, click here for Reader's Digest Version, though the full story is better.  ;)

Now to Him who is able…

If you’ve followed my blog for the last 10 years, you know that the theme verses for our blog (and really life) are Ephesians 3:20-21.  I usually focus on the “immeasurably more” part (thus the name of my blog) when writing or thinking through what God has done in our 14 years of marriage.  However, this time it is more fitting to focus on the first part of the verse, “Now to Him who is able.”  He is able and I’d like to share with you how He has demonstrated this to me.

As many of you know we started the “next thing” last October when we began the paperwork and training involved for foster care.  At the time we thought it might be good to get a bigger house (so we could be approved for more than one child) but just didn’t have the motivation/energy to get the house ready to sell.  So we went ahead with the paperwork and figured we could worry about moving after we started fostering.  Well, you can read my previous post about how for many months things were not moving forward with the homestudy and we just were not sure what to do.  We felt God had led us here but didn’t understand “the silence of God.”

I wrote “The Silence of God” blog post in May.  As I ended that blog post I commented that there were so many transitions in our life as we had decided to start working on the house to get it ready to sell, and as we were getting ready for foster care.  We had so many unanswered questions and we were not sure what to expect.  On top of that we decided it was time to send the kids to public school.  This was not a light decision, in fact, it was a decision we had visited multiple times in the past 3 years, but this was the first time we both had a peace about the decision.  I had prayed many times that God would show me if I should put the kids in public school and until May I was not sure, but at that point it was clear to both Daniel and I that it was time and that the decision was what was best for our family at the time.  However, I was not willing to put my two, small for their age, children in 5^th grade in Davidson County.  5^th grade is middle school and they definitely weren’t ready for that. 

So this is when things got complicated (at least in my mind).  It is the middle of May!!!  How in the world are we going to sell our house, buy a house, and get settled before school starts!?!  It seemed so impossible to me.  I was worried that it couldn’t be done and the kids would have to start at a new school late in the year.  I really wanted them to start on day one, but day one was Aug. 1.  So all these questions were swirling around in my mind and I was getting anxious about all of them!!  As you know I write when I have so much on my mind and so I began to write.  I wrote out all my fears, every single one of them and every single detail. 

- fears about not having the time/resources/knowledge to get the house ready to put on the market

- fears we couldn’t get it on the market and sell in time for school

- fears they would make Benjamin repeat 4^th grade because of his birth date

- fears people would be upset about our decision

- fears the kids would be too behind to thrive at 5^th grade level

- fears that I will miss homeschooling

- fears that I made wrong decisions about our homestudy and we might have to start it all over

And with each fear I wrote a prayer.  A prayer giving that fear over to God.  A prayer asking Him to give me peace, instead of anxiety about it all.  A prayer with what I know God is able to do and asking that He do it!  I ended those prayers with this: “Lord, there is so much on my mind.  Most is out of my control.  None of it do You want me to worry about.  All of it You want me to bring to You in prayer, with thanksgiving (Philippians 4).  Most of my requests seem impossible….but I know nothing is impossible for You!  Please intervene.” 

So I gave it all to Him and began the steps it takes to get a house ready for the market.  I had already been cleaning out the house and packing because we knew we wanted to sell the house, however, the decision to send the kids to school meant that process had to speed up.  So I started painting, cleaning, rearranging and getting the house ready to sell.  We had a few things going on that put us at the end of May before being ready to talk to our friend Misti about listing the house.  So we decided to put the house on the market the first week of June.  The kids and I were going to be at VBS in Clarksville all week so we wouldn’t be home to mess up the house. 

Misti listed the house on Monday and said showings would start on Wednesday.  She had it set up to have the agent schedule showings with me.  So on Wednesday while at VBS I confirmed 3 showings and then 2 more showings later that evening.  I was so shocked that we had 5 showings on the first day!!!  The next day as I am walking into VBS I have a text from Misti saying we had two offers on the house, one at listing price and one above!  WOW!  So exciting and so hard to focus on VBS now!  The offers expired at 1:00 and I was at VBS until 12:30 so I didn’t quite know what to do.  So basically in between classes I was calling and texting Daniel and Misti.  In the midst of that Daniel got a message from a friend asking if we were selling our house.  He said he had a friend that is a missionary and is about to begin ministry in Madison.  He was looking for a house in the area to be close to the ministry.  He had looked at our house the day before and loved it.  I told Daniel to call him right away, since we already had two offers, and to let him know to get an offer in quick.  It turns out he was one of the offers we already had!  So we agreed to the offer they gave us!  GOD SOLD OUR HOUSE IN ONE DAY AND TO MISSIONARIES!!!  I WAS ECSTATIC!!!  Daniel and I have such a heart for ministry and for missions and to think that God had a plan in selling our house to missionaries was such a thrill to me!  I just couldn’t believe it!  I was so so happy!  They wanted to close on July 12 and I figured that would be perfect, that should give us time to find a house and get settled before school started!

However, we had a few problems.  The first problem was we only had one week to look at houses before we all left for camp.  The other problem is that it is definitely a seller's market, so buying a house proved to be difficult!  We looked at several houses the week we had free and only found one we really liked (it didn’t fit our criteria 100% but we liked it a lot).  It was a Wednesday and we were heading for church.  We told Misti we would consider an offer and call her after church.  Before I even arrived at church the house had an offer, the people accepted it and we were back to looking at houses.  We really weren’t finding what we were looking for so we didn’t worry about it and headed off to camp.  So now we are at the end of June and we don’t have a house.  We have to be out of ours in about 3 weeks!  I start getting fearful about school, not about where to live because we could live with my parents or Daniel’s parents.  But I really wanted the kids to start school at their zoned school and on time!  I began praying for an empty house. 

Not long after getting back from camp Misti sent a list of houses for us to look at.  There was one we really liked, but it was over our budget.  It fit all of our criteria (4 bedrooms, a bonus room with a door, and a fenced in backyard) so we decided to crunch the numbers and see If we could handle the payments, and to see if we could get prequalified before we went to look at it (because we knew when we saw it we would want it).   We got the okay from the mortgage company so we went to look at it.  We put an offer on it and waited.  We got a counter offer and things went back and forth for a few days.  She did not like the contingency to sell our house on the contract but there was no way we could make an offer without it.  In fact I don’t think she would have accepted the offer but I think that detail was overlooked at first.  We set a July 12 closing date and all seemed well.  But then our mortgage company said they had a 35 day waiting period and they could not close until Aug. 3.  Oh no!  But school starts Aug. 1, I really wanted to be in and settled before school started!!  I wondered if we could get the kids in their zoned school if we were living with Daniel’s parents in another zone.

  God is able….

So the seller did not want to agree to the Aug. 3 closing date but eventually came around and accepted it.  The house was empty (something I had been praying about) and so we asked if we could possibly rent it from her from July 3 – Aug. 3.  She sent us a rental agreement saying we could rent starting July 12 and asked for a large deposit.  We decided we could not agree to it and called Daniel’s parents to prepare them for our arrival on July 12.  Since we rejected the offer she came back with another offer and we were able to accept it!  She also said we could move in the 9^th instead of the 12^th (a huge, huge blessing.  I don’t think we could have possibly gotten all our stuff out on the 12^th and been ready for the buyers of our house to move in.). 

So we moved in July 9 (without Josie because it was a “no pets” rental agreement) but we were in the house.  I took that week to unpack the essentials and get the kids rooms set up.  We closed on the 12^th and it cost more than we expected, so once again that anxiety started to creep in.  What if we don’t have the money to close on the 3^rd?  What if closing costs on this house are more than we expected like on the other house?  Now we are settled but what if I can’t afford to buy school supplies?  Once again God stopped me and my worries and reminded me that He is able….  So I waited, sometimes not so patiently to see what would happen.  We got the kids registered for school and they put them both in 5^th grade!  We met the neighbors and they have a boy going into 5^th grade and the other neighbors have a girl going into 5^th grade.  So the kids would know someone at the start of school!  We also got zoned for the school where our good friend Jennifer teaches. 

Now I need to update a bit on the foster situation.  So we went month without hearing anything from our agency.  I had kindof given up on them and thought once we moved we would start over with a new agency.  They called the day after we sold our house and said we would be approved by the following Monday!  They e-mailed while I was at camp and I told them I was at camp and would get back to them the following week.  They called me when I got back from camp and asked me when they could start looking at referrals for us.  I told them we were packing our house to move and I would let them know.  She said it is okay the kids can move with you.  I said, no, you don’t understand we are moving in like two weeks.  She still didn’t take no for an answer.  So all this time of not hearing from them and now they are ready and we aren’t!!  After we put the offer on the house I told them we would close on Aug. 3 and get back to them.  They called 3 more times before Aug. 3 and called Daniel once since I kept saying no!!  Of course now that is after Aug. 3 we’ve heard nothing from them, ha!  But, we do know they are looking for referral for us!

Now back to the house and school.  The day before I needed to buy school supplies we got the closing disclosure for the house.  It was a lot less than they had estimated!  I was so relived and texted my Mom and said, “God is taking care of the closing costs.”  She replied “of course He is!!!”  And so I felt relieved to feel comfortable buying school supplies.  The kids started school on Aug. 1 and LOVED it!  Hannah had each neighbor in at least one of her classes.  Benjamin didn’t but we later found out Daniel works with a guy that has a son in his class.  We found this out at the closing.  The guy at the closing company also has a son in Benjamin’s class!  We were just saying how we wished we knew some parents with kids in Benjamin’s class and God provide that too!  We closed on the house, it is ours, and our dog is sitting with me as I type.  Oh and I’ve had complete peace and excitement over sending the kids to school.  Daniel asked if I was going to cry dropping them off.  I said, “I don’t think so,” and I didn’t.  Just a new adventure for us all and we are excited to be on it. 

So God is able….

able to bring peace in chaotic situations

able to calm fears

able to sell houses in a day and to missionaries

able to help us buy a house and rent before closing

able to get the kids ready for school

able to work out even the smallest details

able to do what in my eyes seemed impossible

I am so excited about God’s plans for our family.  I know He has us right where He wants us.  He gave a house that we can use to minister to foster kids.  He has the kids in their school and in the classes He wants them in and I know He has their good in mind.  He has me home with Malachi and ready for more!  He has Daniel working right where He wants him.  I don’t know what is next, but I know He brought us here.  He brought us here quickly.  So I know He has great things in store.  But He likes for me to wait.  So I’ll sit here and wait and see what is next for us!  “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

Now to Him Who is Able.....(Reader's Digest Version)

Now to Him who is able….

If you’ve followed my blog for the last 10 years, you know that the theme verses for our blog (and really life) are Ephesians 3:20-21.  I usually focus on the “immeasurably more” part (thus the name of my blog) when writing or thinking through what God has done in our 14 years of marriage.  However, this time it is more fitting to focus on the first part of the verse, “Now to Him who is able.”  He is able and I’d like to share with you how He has demonstrated this to me.

In October we started the process for foster care (see blog post Do the Next Thing).  We wanted to be open to a sibling group, so we started thinking about moving, but we were not really being proactive about it. (DCS in most cases only allows two children per bedroom, so we could only accept one girl at the old house.) In mid-May we decided the kids were going to public school. This prompted us to start thinking about selling the house quickly to get into a school system better suited for us.  This also led me to a list of fears….

- fears about not having the time/resources/knowledge to get the house ready to put on the market

- fears we couldn’t get it on the market soon enough for it to sell in time for school

- fears they would make Benjamin repeat 4^th grade because of his birth date

- fears people would be upset about our decision

- fears the kids would be too behind to thrive at 5^th grade level

- fears that I would miss homeschooling

- fears that I made wrong decisions about our homestudy and we might have to start it all over (this in and of itself is a very long story, the homestudy process has not been a smooth one).

I decided that all the fears and worries would not help me, so I wrote out all my fears and with each fear I wrote a prayer.  A prayer giving that fear over to God.  A prayer asking Him to give me peace instead of anxiety about it all.  A prayer with what I know God is able to do and asking that He do it!  I ended those prayers with this: “Lord, there is so much on my mind.  Most is out of my control.  None of it do You want me to worry about.  All of it You want me to bring to You in prayer, with thanksgiving (Philippians 4).  Most of my requests seem impossible….but I know nothing is impossible for You!  Please intervene.” 

So the weeks began to tick away and God began to show me with each and every detail that He is able and confirmed to me that the decisions we had made (some tough, some easy) were in His plan for us and our family.

God is able to make things move quickly:

We put our house on the market, and we accepted an offer on it the next day!  Not only that, but the couple that bought it are missionaries and they are ministering in the Madison area.  How exciting for us, with our hearts for ministry, to know God worked it out for our house to be a blessing to someone with a heart for ministry and missions. 

 

God is able to work through any hurdles:

Houses in the area where we were looking were getting contracts on them the day they listed or sometimes even before they were listed!  We had trouble finding a house that would stay on the market long enough for us even to go see it!  As for this house, for some reason it was on the market for two weeks, we thought it must have something wrong with it.  It did not (well nothing major), and so we decided it was on the market for two weeks to give us time to find it!  God had a plan in that!  The price had also been lowered since it was first on the market.  The seller had some provisions that seemed like we would not be able to agree on, but God worked those details out.  He even worked out the details to let us rent the house before closing. 

God is able to bring about peace in uncertain situations:

None of us were certain about what to expect with school.  However, God had the details worked out ahead of time.  We were zoned for the school my good friend Jennifer works at.  They put Benjamin in 5^th grade with no question.  The kids were excited about school.  I was not nervous.  My fear was they would not start on time, but God allowed us the time to get in the house and be settled before school started.  They loved their first week!  We are also between two neighbors with 5^th graders, so they went to school already having two friends in their grade. 

God is able to break the silence:

We hadn’t heard from the foster agency in weeks!  It seemed they were being silent and God was being silent (see this blogpost).  But that was not true.  God just wanted me to wait.  The day after we sold our house, we got word our homestudy was going to be approved in just a couple of days!  We haven’t stopped hearing from them since (though a placement has not worked out yet).

God is able to do what seems impossible.

God is able to work out the smallest details.

God is able to do far more abundantly beyond what we ask or think.

I am so excited about God’s plans for our family.  I know He has us right where He wants us.  He gave us a house that we can use to minister to foster kids.  He has the kids in their school and in the classes He wants them in, and I know He has their good in mind.  He has me home with Malachi and ready for more!  He has Daniel working right where He wants him.  I don’t know what is next, but I know He brought us here.  He brought us here quickly.  So I know He has great things in store.  But He likes for me to wait.  So I’ll sit here and wait and see what is next for us!  “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”