Roller Coaster Ride and Blessings (Part 2)

If you're just joining me on this crazy journey, you can catch up with Part 1 here.

To answer some of your questions...the van was a generous gift from some folks at church. And those 'vanity' plates? Totally photo-shopped in. We frumps are just not vanity plate kind of people, lol. ;)

Now, I'm not sure about all y'all, but I've had a longtime fear of roller coasters.

Just getting in line for them makes my hands go clammy and my knees go weak, and I get all lightheaded thinking I might actually pass out.

Or maybe have a heart attack, depending on the heights of the hills or the number of loops.

Because those things look all scary and out of my control.

You know, kind of like the 'future'.

And once you get strapped in that seat...you're committed. There'll be no changing of minds.

Roller coasters go up and down, and jerk me around, and make me feel like my heart is going to explode.

And then, mercifully, they are over and I feel nothing but relief, and vow to never EVER go on another one again.

And it's been a long time since I have. Because I that's a decision I can control.

Needless to say, when we found ourselves on this figurative roller coaster ride in our day-to-day lives a couple of summers ago...it wasn't met with great enthusiasm on my part.

Because I like knowing what to expect. What to plan for.

And this trusting God completely thing? It's hard to do when you want all the details ahead of time.

Sometimes He only gives them out on a need-to-know basis.

Sometimes not even then.

Because He's developing a little thing called 'trust' in us.

And character.

And some of those things commonly known as fruits of the Spirit.

It's times like these when we're stretched until we think we're going to snap...and then, when things seemed the worst they could possibly be, we get stretched a little further out of our comfort zone...and oh, that smarts. Then suddenly we realize that trial is over and we've made it out on the other end the better for it. We'd grown from the experience.

He sometimes makes us do things we dislike because He knows we wouldn't do it of our own accord...but in His wisdom He knows we'll be better off in the end. He's a wise Father.

Which of course is what I want...the good end results. The spiritual growth.

I just don't like all the particulars about getting there. The growing pains.

Well, the homebuying part of our roller coaster began two summers ago.

It was the same summer when the house we'd been renting for dirt cheap all those years suddenly went up for sale.

Out of our price range.

We were forced to begin packing and getting ready for an uncertain (though much prayed about) future.

Was the Lord moving us locally, out of State, or dare I even ask...out of the country?

We simply didn't know.

"What are your plans for us, Lord?" we asked.

But it was one of those occasions that we were forced to just trust Him though we had no idea what He had in store for us.

That was harder than ever to do.

Our immediate needs for a new job, a new place to live, where to put our stuff in the meantime...all were up in the air.

So I packed things as if we were moving across the globe.

We began praying about moving out-of-State once again.

Jeff had already applied for jobs in our beloved Minnesota. The place we met, married and began this crazy journey together 15 years ago.

It seemed that doors were swinging open. It got to where we were 95% sure we were moving there.

So sure that we'd lined up a rental.

We'd even gone so far as to locate a beautiful little hobby farm in the country on listings online. It was a place we hoped very much to buy.

And then the house we were renting sold.

It was time to move on.

Oh, how we mourned saying goodbye to that house! It was where Jericho had grown up. Where Raisin spent her puppy years. Where Judah was born (well, actually he was born in the hospital, but he came home to that house). We'd done a lot of growing as a family there.

To give you an idea, here are two pictures taken of Jericho at the same window...one shortly after moving in, and the other, the night before moving out.



Then, the doors to those jobs in Minnesota closed.

We had to say goodbye to that dream. That new adventure.

Jeff heard about a promising local teaching job, and after further prayer applied for it and was hired.

I wish I could say that I completely trusted the Lord throughout this entire time.

I did not.

It felt very much like I'd been blindfolded and led to the seat of a very scary ride without my knowledge, and suddenly, there I was, locked in and hurtling down the tracks that were going directions I'd never expected...screaming my lungs out and white knuckling it the whole way.

It's hard to let go. To trust the Lord completely without taking back the 'reins' of control, so-to-speak. Especially when the things you see look ominous.

I know this because this lesson is one I've had to continually learn and re-learn in life.

There is so much more that ties into this time of our lives...the substantial pay cut...having to use our savings, our down-payment money, to pay off some nagging medical debts resulting from Judah's stay in the NICU.

Though we'd prayed, and moved only when we were sure He'd led us to, it still felt like 'one step forward, two steps back'.

It just didn't make sense to us. "Why, Lord?" we questioned. "What is going on here?" It didn't feel like we were making progress.

Had we somehow gotten carried away by wishful thinking and misinterpreted it as the Lord's will for our lives?

While no answers were immediately forthcoming, the message in our hearts continued to resonate...trust Me.

And so we waited. And prayed about things.

And struggled with impatience.

And took back the 'reins' a few times.

And there was still the little problem of finding a new place to live. Soon. The school year was fast approaching.

While scouring the ads, we found that rent had indeed gone up considerably over the years.

We really had no idea how blessed we had been rent-wise until shortly before the home was sold and an appraiser came through as part of the sales procedure.

When he asked how much we'd been paying for rent and I told him, and he whistled low, "Wow! You folks are fortunate! Are you aware that you pay a little over half the going rate for a house this size?"

We were now...and quite honestly, that little fact frightened me.

What was to become of the Frump Family?