Austin - part 1

I'm sitting in my kitchen, in Austin, reflecting on the amazing journey of the past few months (and years, really).  First, I still can't believe I'm here and I can't believe all of the amazing things that God did to get us here.  In addition to that, though, I'm tripping out at how things may have taken a possible turn and God may be about to do even MORE than we could have ever imagined!  Very few people other than my family and a handful of friends even know about how God put us on this journey to Austin and even fewer know the current journey that we're on.  With that in mind, I wanted to share some of what God has been doing in our family.  The idea of Austin was put on our radar almost 4 years ago when the church that we had just started attending in Colorado Springs, sent off one of their pastors to plant a church in Austin.  We had also recently made a move from one side of the city to the other so that in addition to our being new and therefore completely not attached to any of the pastors made this idea of Austin so shocking.  But that Sunday, our pastor had called everyone to the stage who was going to be going w/this family to plant this church so that we could all pray over them as a congregation.  He additionally invited up anyone who was even thinking about going or feeling tugged and that we would pray for those people too.  I turned to Jim and said "I feel tugged" to which he replied, "No you didn't.  We just moved.  You do not feel tugged."  ;-)  And that, my friends, began this journey of seeking God on what He had for us in Austin.  Not that long afterwards, we got the call that our precious little Jasmine was ready to be brought home from China and that ushered in the time of what our other blog was originally about...our journey to bringing her home.  www.4-everfamily-young.blogspot.com  We had MANY months (1+ years) of getting adjusted as a family and many mistakes made.  Still, here and there God continued to bring back this idea of Austin.  We continued to pray and seek.  We went thru an additional crisis of my precious lab, Jake, getting the perfect storm of awful autoimmune diseases that ended taking his life and crushing my heart.  About 3 years ago, we decided to come out to Austin as neither of us had ever been and see if we could put this idea to rest one way or another.  We made a cheap family vaca. out of it and came back, while still wrestling, deciding that if God was in this, that we would continue to follow down this path and see where God led.  That led to my husband doing some soul searching to discover where his real passions and heart laid in relation to a career. 

2 years ago we had the year of what we like to call "3 surgeries."  Jasmine had a cyst removed on her hand and then I had my 2nd ACL repaired.  We thought we were over the drama when a few months later, I found a lump in my breast and was diagnosed w/breast cancer.  Some friends have followed my story on this blog.  God has chosen to heal my body thru surgery and a COMPLETE nutritional/lifestyle change.  That was a much longer journey to healing than I have time for in this blog but you can look back in previous posts in this blog to read about that.  Praise God for His faithfulness!!  About a month or so after my surgery, God put Austin back on our radar again thru a pastor at New Life.  We continued to pray and seek God in this and waited....and waited.....and waited.  During this time, God gave us a few verses and promises that we have been standing on.  One was Ps 37:34 "Do not be impatient for the Lord to act.  Travel steadily along His path and He will honor you, giving you the land."  Another was Ps 20:1-5  "In times of trouble, may the Lord respond to your cry.  May the God of Israel keep you safe from all harm.  May He send you help from His sanctuary and strengthen you from Jerusalem^.  May He remember all your gifts and look favorably on your burnt offerings.  May He grant your heart’s desires and fulfill all your plans.  May we shout for joy when we hear of your victory flying banners to honor our God.  May the Lord answer all your prayers."

A little over 1 year ago, we felt strongly that God wanted us to list our house for sale, which we did.  During the months and months following, we continued to pray and wait and at times, question God.  Did we really hear from Him or what was the deal?  He continued to affirm Austin over and over.  During that time frame we met some new friends at our church who had a profound impact on our lives.  It was one of those God-ordained meetings and this instant connection of hearts that you just can't explain.  They are one of the most beautiful couples I have ever had the privilege to meet and consider myself blessed to have them as friends.  God used them countless times to pray over us, prophesy to us and give us His wisdom that it's not about the destination but about the journey and to keep our eyes on God because it's not always a straight path from A-B with God!  Boy isn't that the truth!   During this time frame we also began to learn how to do listening prayers with God.  I have always tried to follow where I thought God was leading me but do you know that if you are His child, you can really learn how to hear His voice speaking to your heart?  So we began to do listening prayers, asking God when were we going to Austin, etc.  We finally asked Him late 2012 if we should go visit and He told us yes and gave us a date of the end of January.  We headed out to Austin, just the 2 of us, to see what God would put together.  We did have an amazing trip, connecting w/our realtor and mortgage guy, both of whom God had put across our path after our 1st trip.  We felt that something significant had happened and yet, when we got home we continued to wait.  In the meantime, we took our home off of the market for 1 month to reset the MLS and then put it back up in March.  4 days later, we got almost a full price offer on our home with a 2 month escrow.  We marveled at how perfect these buyers were for our situation.  But, in all of this, Jim had yet to get a job offer and that was what we were waiting for in order to move.  We had spoken w/my parents numerous times and we were all under the impression that we shouldn't move w/o a job.  So, we started getting closer to our close date but no job.  Here comes the crazy part.  Jim had started to see some action on the job side and we were talking w/our realtor who told us that her rental house was coming up for rent right about the time we needed to be out of our house.  There were a few other things that seemed to happen at that same time.  I shared this w/my family but no job materialized for Jim so we waited about a week.  Then my parents called and said that they wanted to talk w/us about Austin.  I was fully prepared that they were going to try and talk us out of it but to my amazement my dad said that he felt we were missing it.  We were so afraid to move ahead of God that we were in danger of falling behind.  He felt that God was moving and wanted us to take a step of faith and move w/o a job.  I reminded him of a conversation we had where he was sharing that he felt we shouldn't move w/o a job.  His words to me..."I was wrong."  He pointed out all of the things that had happened and really urged us to move (literally) on this.  While we were talking, I emailed our realtor asking her if her house were still available.  It was!  We got off the phone, still reeling from this conversation, where Jim went and emailed an old trusted friend from CA to run this by him and I continued my conversation w/our realtor, Linda.  The miracle here is that her rental is in a greatly desired area of Austin and usually is rented the same day it goes up for rent but she had had 3 people in a row w/bad credit and hadn't yet rented it.  Hmmm.  Then our friend from CA actually got back to Jim w/in minutes urging us to take the step of faith.  He said that so many people want to see a miracle but aren't willing to put themselves in a position to receive one.  The next day, our "core" of friends all confirmed they saw God's hand in this and so began the 3 week dash to get everything fully packed and ready to go.  And we saw thing after thing get put into place for this move.  Every obstacle was moved by God and we were off on this journey to Austin. Or, so we thought.....