Sunday, October 14, 2012

Roadblocks, Reevaluation, & Renewed Life

Well, What a week! We have been searching for a more permanent home for our family here in Houston since August. We have put offers on nearly 10 homes! We were told "yes" on SEVERAL and they all fell through. Everywhere we turned we were met with roadblock after roadblock and they were all different! Some issues we had were with banks due to foreclosures or short sales, other issues were with the actual seller or other people with better offers, and then we started having real issues with our own realtor. All of this hardship in looking for a permanent place made us stop and pray and consider, maybe God is telling us to wait and listen.

That's what we did. We began praying, and considering what other options God may be trying to show us. And the less time, energy, and emotion we spent on looking for a place to live, the more time we spent talking openly with one another and really exploring what God's will is for us.
We have learned through good advice, good literature, and life experiences, that God rarely spells things out for us in letter soup or something. So we go back to what we know about God and what we know God's will is for all His children, and began examining our lives since we have been in Houston.
What we realized, when we allowed ourselves to be brutally honest is that our quality of life has decreased. We see each other less due to commute and school starting later here, the traffic is a huge stress for Ryan and the isolation has been a major source of anxiety for me. We have tried earnestly to plug into a church and find friends and that too has been one disappointment after another, draining us of energy. And all the added stress of everything that comes from living here has taken away from our marriage.
With Hannah Kate on the way we realized that if we have given it everything we have, and this is our quality of life... it's not the place for us.

HOWEVER, we do not believe that our move here was a mistake. Ryan and I both believe God was teaching us several good but hard life lessons all in one, before our first child arrives. Lots of good growing up, spiritually and just maturity wise.
We both miss our home and family and friends and church back in Austin. We know where we will stay (mostly) we know what church we will go (back) to, we will instantly reconnect with family and friends and those all seem like open doors to me!

Even just thinking about going home gives me a renewed frame of mind. I have been fighting off so much fear and anxiety about having my first baby so far away from the support I always pictured having!
And not ALL of that anxiety has left me as, to make that happen, the union back in Austin has to let Ryan transfer back in the middle of a school year, which, because they are a union, isn't looking so great. He makes the call tomorrow and we are just praying our butts off!
I really want to have Hannah Kate back home!

Here's hoping... and more importantly, praying! God can do big things! God does big things!

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