One year later and beginning again

Erik's gone this morning. He's at his dad's helping him do some work on his boat and doing some work on his car so it's ready to give to the guy we just sold it to. I'm still in my pj's starting this blog and watching the homeless guy out the window dig through the bushes, and wondering what he's looking for, and also looking at the crack in the screen door and wondering if the homeless person, or people, that have been stealing from us has some how managed to climb up to our balcony and sneak into our house at night to sleep or something. I'm sure he hasn't, we would have heard the floors creaking, it's just the first thing that pops into my head. We don't live in a bad area, it's just that for some reason the Vancouver/ Fraser Valley area seems to be one of the most heavily populated places I've ever seen for the homeless. I feel awful saying this, but this year I've found my compassion level drop to all new lows and my faith waiver more than I ever thought possible. I'm sure some of my loss of compassion is due to the fact that most of the homeless here are druggies and to keep the druggies 'healthy' our tax money for health care also goes towards clinics where the homeless care go and exchange their dirty needles for clean ones....Anyways, I'll not go there otherwise I'll rant about it the whole blog.

I'll try to stay on subject as much as possible, and here's the subject: Erik and I have decided to move to Texas! I'm thrilled, I'm so excited to be near my family, yet it's terrifying at the same time, considering we have no plan, and no jobs, just trusting this is what God's telling us to do. And I can't help but feel a massive amount of guilt in taking Erik away from his home for the past 18yrs. and his family. It really does suck to have 2 amazing families on opposite ends on the continent. And of course it's always the moms that take it the hardest. Erik's mom, Rose, has been so great, and I've barely gotten to know her, but I'm just trusting that she'll be able to travel and visit us, and we'll still be able to come for visits often. It is amazing how much you have to take into consideration someone's feelings and life once you get married. This has not been an easy decision!



None the less, this is the decision we've made, and it seems that peace never really settled in until the decision was made. Of course hearing God on this one came much easier for me ;-). British Columbia is beautiful, when it's not raining cats and dogs, overcast, or so cold you can't enjoy being outside. So I think that leaves about 2 months a year. Not to mention this is one of the most expensive places in the world to live. A decent house with barely any land is at least half a million, and until you can afford that you can plan on living your life in condos and apartments and living paycheck to paycheck. It's just way too hard to get used to the idea of that. I know tons of people do it everyday here and they're fine with it. But I come from the land flowing with milk and honey (my Texas pride is kicking in). The place where housing is cheap, jobs are available, people take pride in working to actually enjoy life, family and friends rather than put food on the table and make their mortgage payment. Don't get me wrong, I know things won't be perfect and things might not always be easy, but it's hard not to daydream after this past year. I know we could probably have a great life here, and maybe one day we will but since we've been here we've hit wall after wall and now after a year it seems that God just had us here to wrap some things up. Here's just a ittle of what's happened:

Erik and I met May of last year. We actually hung out on his 30th bday and that's kinda where we began. (Just a quick little side note) before we met we both had been feeling very strongly we were about to be married. I had been seeing 222 EVERYWHERE. SO I asked the Lord what it meant and felt like He said Genesis 2:22 'Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he presented her to the man.' SO I said to God, if this is really going to happened, you literally have to present me to him,cause I will not search him out. So it's funny, because I was literally like his 30th bday 'present'. Okay, back on course. After we met we knew without a doubt we were meant for each other and we were married 4 months later. At the time Erik worked for Fresh Fire ministries as the technical director. He was good friends with Todd Bentley and we had met in the midst of revival. If you want to argue the revival or theology then find somewhere and someone else. Bottom line, Todd fell, and in my heart I knew that there was the beginnings of a genuine revival, you may not believe all the theology, but my heart knows the presence of God, and He was there, in an amazing way. Anyways, before everything fell apart Todd was promising Erik a great job and me too....we were so excited. Then one month before our wedding everything fell apart, and in the midst of the stresses of wedding planning we were trying to decide if we should still move to BC, neither of us had jobs, and of course all of the hurt, betrayal and anger of it all. Oh ya, and did I mention we had only known each other 3 months at the time (living in different states) so we were getting to know each other and how we deal with things and react. So long story short we decide God's telling us to still go, and it's funny now wrting about it because it sounds so horrible, but at the time we both had so much peace it just kinda seemed a no brainer. But the hardest thing was knowing that we would probably have our kids in BC and my parents would barely get to see them, and I would go from seeing them at least every 3 months or so, to maybe 2x's a year. Of course I bawled on our wedding day while I was getting ready...UGH, there were sooo many emotions that day.

So we got to BC and Erik had no job for about a month or 2, but then the church hired him back on. At the time we were living with Erik's dad and step-mom. And though it was scary not having jobs and living with other people when we barely even knew each other I think it was so a God set-up because we had that time to just be with each other, we were together all day. But by December it was time for us to move on, we needed a little more privacy but we couldn't afford to rent because Erik had bought a house with another guy before he met me and that is a very long, NASTY story, but finally a year later we are rid of it! Until then though we were making a mortgage payment on a house we couldn't live in, and paying rent for room in another couples house. So from December to July we lived with friends. We tried to sell my truck, get extra work, I tried starting a business, finding a place to live on our own, nothing! Not one door opened for us. Then finally after months of waiting we found out we were going to be rid of the house Erik had owned, so much money was going to be freed up, we'd be able to live, have a little fun, be alone! And then that same week we found out that everyone was being cut to a four day week. Really, what can you do but laugh. But it hurt so much, through it all I went through days of saying 'God, I'm just going to trust you, I'm going to praise you, I'm in this for good or bad' to day after day of feeling betryed by God and invisible to Him. Had he forgotten us? It saure felt like it. No encouragement, no prophetic words, no feeling, everything was going numb, and I felt depressed on a level that was probably getting close to needing medication. I used to wonder how people could get like that, why could they just give it all to God, they didn't need to carry that burden, why couldn't they just trust and have faith, and maybe there's people out there that can do that, but let me encourage you not to judge to you've walked through fire....you might be considered an incredible person of faith once you've come through the other side, but in the midst of walking through you don't know how you'll really react til you're in the midst of it. Then on a whim, but God knew what He was doing, Erik brought up Texas, the more we talked about it, the more it made sense, and then I started having dreams, my family, mainly my mom and sister, (who we hadn't said anything to at the time) start calling and confirming the dreams I've been having and the things we felt God was saying, and they started having dreams. Then everyone we started telling didn't really seem surprised at all, we just kept hearing over and over again 'makes perfect sense, why not'. Then finally after a month or two of the back and forth trying to decide if this is the right thing to do, the decision was made. And it was a painful one, so many things to take into consideration, and people. But once the decision was made I've had so much peace. We decided to sell all of our furniture and within a week it almost gone. We wanted to sell Erik's car and before we even told anyone someone called him and asked to buy it! Erik might even be getting a job he can do from anywhere...he goes in on Tues or Wed.! But it's just amazing how things seem to be so much easier all the sudden. It is kinda odd too that all the sudden when we made up our minds we find out that people everywhere seem to be moving. Even some of Erik's good friends here, but I know of people in Fl., Tx. BC, and all over that are just up and moving out of nowhere. So God must be up to something.

So here we are leaving August 22nd. Headed to Texas. As of right now, no jobs, no home, we'll be living with my parents, embarking on a massive and expensive stack of paperwork for Erik to immigrate, and I haven't felt so alive and hopeful since meeting Erik a year ago. Some days it's exciting and some days it's terrifying. But none the less, we're doing it and believing God's in it. And though we've had some really rough patches this past year I'm soo glad I had someone to go through it with. It wasn't like in my fairytale world, where if something went wrong and you were married you wouldn't even notice it because you would be so happy just being together, not at all, I'd almost say at times it was worse, because you love and care for someone sooo much and not only are you hurting, but so are they and you want to make it baetter but you can't, you can't fix everything for them, nor can they for you. You just learn and grow to together, and you are there for their bad days, and they are there for your bad days. But though it's not always been easy and I can honestly say if I had a choice I'd NEVER go through it again, I am grateful for it, because we have grown so close and so strong together, and we may have failed at some points, but we've kept getting back up and moving forward, and in the big picture we've passed on a major level, and I'm excited to see the fruit that will come from this season.

Well, if you've stuck this blog out for this long then I applaud you! They probably won't all be this long, just wanted to catch you up.