Homes and Hearts

My entire life I’ve been incredibly intuitive. It’s actually a gift that I inherited from my mother. I watched her live by trusting her gut instinct both in motherhood and in ordinary, every day life, and it never failed her. She’s the one who always encouraged me to lean in and trust that feeling within myself, but once I gave my life to Christ, it became so much more.

When Jesus became Lord of my life, that natural inclination became a spiritual gifting that the people closest to me would easily affirm. I can hear the Spirit, not actually with my ears, but with a voice my heart knows all the same, whisper and prompt me in ways that are undeniably God. And I know that will be enough for some of my most conservative brothers and sisters to move right along and chalk me up as charismatic and cookoo, but hear me out!

When I experience the Spirit speaking to me, it is never above or contradictory or in addition to the Word of God in the holy scriptures. It’s not a new revelation about the character or work of God, and I would never consider it or hold it to that level of authority. But it is something that has enriched my relationships with other believers, pushing me towards them at times they needed me. And it’s also pulled me back, putting me on alert against people and situations that would eventually bring a lot of spiritual harm to my family. It’s a voice that has prompted me to ask hard questions, make bold decisions, and surrender further in faith to the power of God working in my life. And it’s a voice that has never been wrong, whether I listened initially or not.

I became accustomed and well acquainted with hearing from the Lord this way, though I can’t say it was often that it happened. Maybe only a handful of times in my 10 years of following Christ did I really clearly and overwhelmingly feel that voice. So you can imagine my shock, and even more so my husband’s, when I came home from an hour long grocery run to our little house in Texas and declared, “I think we are supposed to move to Arkansas.”

Was it completely out of the blue? Not really. We had been playing around with the idea of a move for a while at that point. We’d even taken a few family trips to the places we hoped to be, and were fairly certain we were headed for the east coast. Arkansas was firmly on the “not gonna happen list,” no matter how hard friends of ours had begged.

But the call was loud, and the feeling overwhelming, and it had that potency of the call of God all over it. I stood in the kitchen for 45 minutes, groceries abandoned to the trunk in the Texas heat, explaining to my husband how I just knew that we were supposed to go to Arkansas, and that that would be a place I would write, and a place that I would heal. He didn’t believe it. I didn’t even believe it. But I remember putting the groceries away, and then more vividly than anything else that day I remember walking into our bedroom, taking a heavy breath and saying, “Lord, if you want us in Arkansas, you’re going to have to make a way.”

Two weeks later we visited those friends who had been begging us to come see Northwest Arkansas. They were fully ready to show off their new home, having just relocated themselves. But even on the car ride there we joked, “No way are we actually moving to Arkansas.” It just wasn’t possible. We had a two year old and a six month old. We had a house that we were firmly in the middle of completely remodeling. I had a business that I had worked to build for four years. We had a new church we had just settled into, finally. No way. Not moving and not to Arkansas.

What happened next, I couldn’t even describe. My husband, the thinker, the planner, and the man who had spent 2 years watching every video that existed online about moving to Greenville, South Carolina, made a commitment by the end of a five day trip to build a new home on a lot in Springdale, Arkansas. I remember asking about our remodel and if we could really accomplish this financially. He was more confident than I’d ever seen him. His faith was so steady, it made me steady. We prayed over a lot with tears in our eyes because we knew this is where we were going to build our family. We would later come to call that moment, “God blindness.”

A week after coming home from the trip we officially signed our housing contract and sent off our deposit for the build. 24 hours later that God blindness wore off…. fast. Absolute panic set in. We started reviewing our finances in depth. There was no way we could afford this. We started crunching numbers on what would be required to get the remodel complete and on market in time. Impossible. How did we do this? Could we undo it? What on earth had we done.

From the first week of August to the first of December we completed every bit of work we had left. An entire kitchen remodel, an entire master bathroom remodel, a new roof, extensive exterior work, plumbing work, electrical work, baseboard and trim in every closet and doorway, a massive accent wall, a dining room remodel, and more. How the time was there, and how our children were gracious enough to allow for it, was only God. Not a day did we have babysitters. Not a day did we send the babies off to daycare. Not a day did anyone show up to help. But God.

We started to sell things we knew we didn’t want to take to the new house. We were somehow able to reduce the deposit amount the builder was asking for, saving us a bit more budget for the remodel. We cut back, cooking every meal, strictly planning every dollar spent, and rearranging investments and savings to be accessible. During that season I somehow went the longest I’d ever gone without a single sale in my business. We couldn’t stretch any further, and yet we did. We had nowhere to run to fix this with our own hands. God made it abundantly clear that he was to be totally depended on. It was him that would provide, only him.

And he did move mountains during those days. Insurance picked up massive amounts of work at the house, more than we even asked for, stunning even the contractors who we hired to help convince them we needed just a new roof. Hospital bills we had been paying for my son got picked up by charities we didn’t apply for, sending reimbursement checks in the mail for every dollar that we had paid. My parents showed up with an unexpected financial gift at just the moment our credit card bill was due, and in just the amount we were short. We never for a moment had to take on interest or debt we couldn’t pay, by God’s grace alone. And at the end of it all we put our beautiful, finished home on the market, where it sold in three days for more than any home in our neighborhood had sold for in 7 months. Amazingly it sold for the perfect amount to relieve us from any lingering remodel payments, cover our move, and pay our down payment on the new home (with a little to spare, because the abundance of God’s kindness to us in this was seemingly limitless.)

By the world’s standard, we were foolish. By our own standards, we were insane. It was the hardest thing we’ve ever done. It was risky, painful, and asked for so much sacrifice from every member of our family, even our babies. But God did what he said. I lived it, and I still struggle to believe it’s real. It was absolutely impossible, multiple times over. We never should have made it. It doesn’t make a lick of sense. But God. He said, “You’re going to Arkansas.” I said, “You’re going to have to make a way.” And wow did he ever forge the path to take us there.

We don’t know what lies ahead of us. We are rounding out our Texas goodbye tour and anticipating what God has in store for us in the place he clearly has called us to. We are eager to settle into a new home and live more simply in this next season with our family.

And I’m ready to see to the rest of what I know the Lord whispered to me that day; I’m ready to write. I’m ready to heal. I hope you’ll join me on that journey as I share it with you and reflect more on how I got here. Because I’m starting over again. I’ll need a new village, and maybe that’s you. I know God isn’t done yet with this story. He’s only just begun. But today I am rejoicing in how far he’s carried us to this point. To God be the glory, for great things He has done.