Time to Rest

A few hours after posting our last blog, we received a phone call from a woman we have never met.  She is the mom of a friend who will be working with us in Spain, and she told us that God woke her up at 4 a.m. that morning to pray for us for two hours. I am so thankful for people willing to lose sleep in order to be obedient.

I can think of several words that describe how Jono and I were feeling after our trip to D.C. But I think the one that tops the list was CONFUSED. What do we do now? Do we stay put? What if the visa is delayed for several more months? Should we move somewhere other than Spain?  Why does it feel like we can't hear God clearly?

So when our friend's mom said, "You and Jono are in such a heightened state of alert that you cannot even hear God clearly," I knew that I'd better pay attention to what she was saying.

Here's a summary of what God put on her heart to share with us: We must learn to discern when we are to war and when we are to rest.  Now is the time to let God war for us. He wants us to rest and stay at peace. True rest is freedom from excessive reasoning, struggles, fear, inner turmoil, worry, and frustration from working to do what only God can do. Rest is the difference between having faith and trying to have faith. God is working it out. He is setting it up. He wants to speak directly to us, but we must step back, rest, and hear directly from Him.

We have warred in prayer for this visa for months. I have prayed for it every day, several times a day. It was like God was saying to me, "I've heard every one of your prayers. You can stop and rest now."  We were weary and heavy-laden, and Jesus was offering us rest and peace.  We took Him up on it.

Since then we've been trying to make decisions based off of what would be the most restful. For us, that means minimizing the number of times we have to move our family and change our plans. So on Saturday morning, the boys and I will go back to Georgia and wait for our visa. Jono will finish packing and cleaning in NC and follow early next week. We continue to have hope that the visa will come soon. But we also trust that it's totally in His hands and timing.

Yesterday a friend sent me a text and asked "Are you stressed?"  I wholeheartedly answered her "No. I have peace."  I think that's pretty amazing. Even when our circumstances are unchanged, His grace changes everything.

A (hopefully small) Change in Plans

Sometimes when G gets all worked up we tell him to close his eyes, take a deep breath, and say "Life is a cookie."  Though he probably has no idea what "life" really is, he definitely knows about cookies. And cookies make him happy.  We have no parenting strategy in doing this. It's just funny for us to watch, and saying it makes G giggle.

So last night, after a difficult, whirlwind trip to D.C., I found myself in the shower, closing my eyes, taking a deep breath, and saying "Life is a cookie." Guess what? It worked. I even giggled.

Nothing went as planned for us this week.  I could innumerate the details, but the bottom line is that we are back to waiting.  All of our paperwork is in the hands of the Spanish Embassy. It will go back to Spain for another round of approval and then the visa will be granted. For various reasons, we thought this would take from 1-7 days. The difficult news we got this week is that they expect it to take from 1-3 months. 

I'll be honest, I've felt like throwing things. But then, Jono reminded me, I'd just have to clean up after myself.  Instead I've asked God to give me His peace and prayed for a thankful attitude.  So here are some things we're grateful for:

1. Very helpful people at the Spanish Embassy. They answered our endless questions, gave us their cell phone numbers and email addresses, and walked us step by step through what we needed to do. They gave good advice and did everything they could do to assist us. Believe me, this is not always the case when working with any government system.
2. We thought we would be homeless in North Carolina as of July 24th. But we were offered somewhere to stay, right next to where we currently live. So now we need to decide if we want to stay in NC while we wait or go ahead and move down to Georgia.  
3. God is able! We continue to pray for the visas to be put in our passports in a miraculously short period of time. A one-month delay really isn't a big deal. Three months puts our move really close to my due date, especially considering how early Sims arrived. 
4. YOU! Thanks for all the prayers (and sympathy). We know that in the big scheme of things that this is not a huge deal. We are all alive, healthy, and in the hands of our good God. But it means so much just to hear people say "I'm sorry. Please tell me if there's anything we can do."  
5. Our awesome kids. We dragged them around and into chaos for four intense days. They had good attitudes and brought us a lot of joy when everything else felt disappointing. 

Please pray with us that we'd have the visas in hand within a short period of time.  And pray for wisdom as we make decisions about what to do in the upcoming days (regarding housing, etc.).  We have to be out of our current home by July 24th.  Pray that God would give us clarity and grace for whatever is up ahead.

In the meantime, we'll be sure to eat lots of chocolate, which makes everyone happy!

A Happy Post

There's nothing quite like a blog filled with great news.  Most of it's old news, of course, with Facebook at our fingertips.  But if you're going have a blog at all, you at least have to write a post when happy things happen. 

Next week we will drive to D.C. and get our visas from the Spanish Embassy.  We like life to be as crazy as possible, so we're going the week Jono's sister and her family (with whom we'll be staying) are moving into their new house. We will also make an emergency stop by the Department of State in order to add more pages to my passport, since we waited until the last minute to make sure those documents were in order. Brilliant! If all goes according to plan, we should have visas in hand and airplane tickets purchased by the end of next week.

So, that means that we're just about ready to move to Spain! And it's a good thing, too, because apparently life in the U.S. does not give me inspiration for blogging. My prayers have transitioned from grace for waiting to grace for chaos as we pack, travel, and move several times over the next month. Our current itinerary has us going from North Carolina to Washington D.C., back to North Carolina, to Georgia, briefly to Tennessee, back to Georgia, and on to Spain (not to mention all that comes with moving to a new country). All in five weeks! With two kids and a baby on the way! 

Oh yes, which brings us to the other good news. We're going to have another baby! This one is scheduled to arrive on December 27th, poor thing. I've never met someone with a late December birthday who likes it. At least we think it's a great Christmas present. G thinks "Simi" is a good name if it's another boy. And we think there is good wisdom in not letting toddlers name a child. 

It's hard to believe that one year ago we posted this video to our blog. In many ways it feels like a lifetime ago that G lived with food allergies. People often ask us if he has any food issues anymore or if any of his allergies have reappeared with time. We are so thankful to answer "No," and heave a sigh of gratitude and relief. Thank you Jesus. 

On a hike with Grannie and Papa during our May visit to El Paso

Building forts with cousin Grey in Snow Camp, NC

Brotherly love. Yes, G does own and occasionally wear shirts.

Visiting with an old friend of Jono's, who is a musician. He put on a concert about an hour from where we live, so we went and hung out with him for a little while. This pic is on his tour bus. It was fun!