The True Adventure Takes a Turn

Where to begin??  How about "we just put an offer down to buy a house in Bryan, Tx"?

I have so many things to say, yet speechless all at the same time.  

My dear friend Tara put it well:  This is a total 180, haha, and that is typically what happens in your life before you do something. Otha moving back from Morocco, having a baby...I have to say that I kind of love it. I know it keeps you on your toes and sometimes you don't love it, but that's what living in God's plan is about. Him, not us. And His plan always turns out perfectly. Like marriage and Asher.

Amen Tara, I could not have said it better myself. 


Like I said a week ago, we were looking into going overseas.  Monday, Otha came home from staff development day at the new high school excited about a fresh environment if we end up staying.  I must confess- that was confusing.  Otha is excited about maybe staying here.  I am at a place where I could move.  So Tuesday, we got a pretty clear answer from the Lord that we are not going to participate in the opportunity that was in front of us to move abroad.  This made us pay more attention to Otha's revival of patience with living in Bryan.  

While this is all happening, Otha sees a house for sale right down the street.  $55,000 my friends for a 4 bedroom, 2 bath foreclosure house.  We laugh about how crazy it would be if we bought it.  Then we laughed about how crazy it would be if we passed up an opportunity to see the inside of a huge house for such a cheap price.  Friday we meet the realtor at the house and it happened to be sold the day before.  No big deal, move on with our lives, right?  No.  Seeing this house inspired us to look at other foreclosures in the area.  Foreclosures are on housing websites.  Housing websites have other houses on them that are not foreclosures.  Thus we found ourselves looking at non-foreclosure houses.  

Saturday we ventured out with little man and my parents to look at some of the houses- all of them were terrible.  So later in the afternoon, my gracious parents stayed with Asher while he napped and Otha and I set out to conquer the rest of the list.  Before we drove away, we prayed that God would just make it so very obvious to us whether we should buy a house or not.  The first house we came to we adored.  Both of us.  If you have not gotten a clue about how big of a deal it is for Otha and I to love the same thing at the same time- IT'S BIG.  Everything about the house, the yard, the attached apartment, the neighborhood, just made sense to us.  So I gave the realtor a call just to see if we could schedule a showing this week.  "You are at the house right now?  I will call my assistant to come meet you and show you the inside."

I will spare you details of how we adored the inside just as much as the outside.  Adored.

Blah blah blah looked at the rest of the houses on our list, hated them blah blah blah.  

"Should we seriously consider buying this house?" <----- our conversation the remainder of Saturday.  We both felt peaceful about it, not intertwined with my normal emotional response to situations.  

Sunday, the teaching at church hit super close to home for both of us.  It reminded us that we should be filled with the Spirit, not fear.  You should just listen to the teaching.  Seriously.  http://comchurch.com/Home.aspx

I was fearful of commitment, if we spent money on the house not having money for adoption, etc...

Otha was fearful of never leaving Bryan.

Moving forward towards buying this house was moving forward in giving our fears to the Lord and following the Spirit in obedience to where God has us.  

Today we were pre-approved for a loan and put an offer on the house.  We are waiting with peaceful hope.  Sweet, peaceful hope.  I cannot express to you the relief that comes knowing you are walking in obedience.  Sure, we will be disappointed if our offer is not accepted.  But more than that we will walk away either empty handed or with a house key knowing we are free from our fears and God has used the past week to free us.  Praise God, for He is so, so good to us.

The True Adventure

Recently, Otha and I shared our life stories with our church small group.  I did not realize how long it had been since I had verbalized my life to other people until I found myself stumbling over words, trying to convey my journey.  Boy, am I one walking contradiction.  One moment I attempted to describe my forever desire since I was a little girl to live outside the American dream- not go to college, live overseas, not have a conventionally structured family, etc.  The next moment I was confessing how I do not want to move from Bryan, I crave stability, and how I panic if I think of our kids being more than a few years apart.  If someone asked my 13 year old self what my life would be like at 23, I would have told them I envisioned having my hair cutting license, traveling around the world, living month to month, just breathing in new opportunity to live life to the fullest.  My actual life at 23 is quite different.  I am a stay at home wife and a mom with a college degree living in Bryan, Texas lacking a desire to leave anytime soon.

Otha thrives in change, new experiences, and constant adventure.  That is a huuuge reason I was initially attracted to him and why I chose to follow this man the rest of my life.  Because of his distaste for the mundane, I knew our life would never be dull and rarely predictable.  In the depths of my being, that is what I want- a continual change of environment, forcing me to lean on the Lord in the midst of the unknown.  Every other part of me wants to have a heart attack.  Due to this constant inner battle, I am so thankful I married a man who would not let me live in my default of safety and security.  I find myself, even in the midst of conflict over the matter, thanking the Lord that Otha's defaults are different from mine.

 In the past month and a half, Otha has been itching to move somewhere else.  I want to say that I cannot possibly comprehend why he does not find Bryan, Texas thrilling, rich with culture, and never ending with adventures to be had.  However, I am honest enough to admit Bryan is not the most exciting place to live.  After moving back following our very short time in Austin though, I found myself nestling in and finding comfort in this small town filled with people whom I love.  My need for beauty in my environment decreased.  My ambition to attend cosmetology school was placed aside.  My determination to live in a progressive city subsided.  Before I knew it, I was calling Bryan "home"and was so thankful we had moved back to a place that had hosted me during a time of radical transformation in my college years.  So Otha wanting to move did not exactly excite me.  In fact, I am pretty sure I cried every time we had a conversation about relocating our family to a different city.  Continual conversations, continual disagreements, and continual tears.

But guess what?  Our God is so faithful to us!  After sharing our stories with comgroup, they prayed over us for unified vision.  God began answering that prayer within minutes that night, I just did not realize it until a few days later.  Our new friend Kirby approached me when comgroup ended to inform me of an opportunity overseas for Otha to teach English and coach football.  In her kindness and sweet spirit, she freed me to just take the information to process, no pressure to tell Otha.  In the moment, I truly did not know what to do with what she told me.  I had never had a strong desire to go to the region of the world where this opportunity is and in the two days I processed the info, I concluded Otha would not want to go there either.  So I decided to tell him about my interaction with Kirby, thinking we would conclude- "wouldn't that be crazy?" and then move on with our lives.  Of course, that was not the case.  Otha showed extreme interest and asked me question after question of which I did not have any answers to.  By the end of that day, Otha and I realized going overseas is something that excites us both and a real possibility of what might be our next step in life.  We were unified.  Unified vision.

So now we are just exploring, praying, waiting for answers to see what is next for us.  We could move out of the country this summer or live in a America until we are 50.   Really, nothing is definite for us right now other than seeking together, with shared anticipation to see God move in our life.  That, my friends, is an adventure in itself.