One Year Later...

Can you believe it's been a year since God called Donn and I to leave NC to begin C1 in NY!!

I can hardly believe it's been that long and yet here we sit now (in temperatures that are dropping) and just one week away from our grand opening event!

Here are some things I've learned over the past year:

1) Surrender is crucial. Before God even gave us this calling, He was preparing our hearts by teaching us to surrender. I'll never forget the day I sat on my back patio in NC and ended up in tears as I felt God reminding me that every part of my life needed to be surrendered to Him. "Lord, I surrender our home, I surrender our family, I surrender my life to You..." Those were some of the hardest words I have ever uttered and yet they threw open the gates for God to begin revealing His plan in our life!

2) Having deep faith on one day does not mean you will have deep faith the next day. This faith journey has been such a rollercoaster! Some days I look at our bank account or our trials and they barely bother me because I know that God is in control of them. Then, inevitably, I wake up the next day in a sweat wondering how we're going to make ends meet! I used to feel guilty about this until I realized that this is actually a great way for God to keep me on my toes in our faith journey together. Faith is a day by day commitment (sometimes a minute by minute commitment)!

3) My ways are not His ways....uggh....shoot me dead now...This is a tough one for me! My life has changed in just about every way this past year. My friendships have changed, my home has changed, my career has changed, my family-life has changed, my hips have changed (oops...that's another blog). The point is...everything is different! As a general rule of thumb, I'm thrilled with knowing that God has placed a calling on our life and we're pursuing it, but specifically, there are a few things I would have personally done differently. I miss my days in ministry settings, I miss my time to write, I miss (most of all) my children. Sometimes life throws us curve balls and all we can do is try to play the game well. I've never been much of an athlete, but I'm trying to do my best now. It may not be a "game" I would have chosen but I trust that God has the big picture in mind and knows what His plan is for me.

4) Don't lose sight of who you are. This one has been interesting for me. Any of you who know me, know that I'm pretty transparent and wear my heart on my sleeve. Just a few years ago, I wrote a book about being honest and confident in who you are....these past few months have been a definite exercise in my own confidence! Never before have Donn and I felt so challenged, so burdened, so responsible or so "watched" as we have since beginning C1. At times I find myself over-analyzing my actions. I have come to realize that it's a wonderful thing to recognize the responsibility that we have, but it's a problem if we let that responsibility change who we really are inside. Walking through a rebirth of my own Godly confidence has been one of the greatest blessings of this journey.

5) God is waiting to blow our socks off! Just when you think you'll never sell a house...He'll sell it...just when you think you'll never get a job, He'll provide one...just when you think you'll never have deep friendships again, He'll bring them...just when you think no one is showing up to help unload the moving van, people will come out of the woodwork...just when you think you'll never be in your own home again...He'll put the perfect house in your path...

...just when you think you can never do it, He'll remind you that it's Him who was doing it all along!

One year later...what a great year it's been!