Have you ever had season changes with God in 5x’s fast forward?  You know when you are trying to fast forward the DVR and you skip over all 10 advertisements before you can even make sense of what is happening?  It is like whiplash…I am speaking from experience as I reflect on the last 18 months of our family’s life.

We moved to Chicago after 4 years in Colorado.  Colorado was wonderful for our family.  We had a church family, we had wonderful friends (life-longers) and we were on fire for God!  When my husband had an opportunity to take a position in Chicago with his company we believed God was moving us to Chicago to do His work and were so excited to be moving.  I admit I wasn’t happy about the weather situation but my life is not my own!

We lived in Chicago for almost 4 years to the day.  As is normal with any new “home” we began to learn the area, search for a home church and got to know our neighbors.  God is so perfect in His love for us, he blessed us with a hungry Christian family that became a part of our family.  They lived a door down and I can truly say they are our brother and sister.  But, as with all things that are not watered regularly, we began to wilt and lose our leaves.  We could not find a home church, we did not have regular worship as a community and our children who had visions of missionary work and ministry callings just 3 years earlier were becoming more and more like the “world”.  I had totally missed it!  It sneaks into your life like a thief in the night…..literally.  Our family had moved everything but our toes out of God’s Kingdom and into the world.

One day on my way to work, I heard that voice that I had heard so often before, call out to me.  I had not heard it clearly for years but I recognized it immediately.  “Christina, I love you….do you love me?”  I immediately responded and had a moment in my car, crying out to God, crying and snotting so much I had to pull over or risk an accident.  He spoke to me in an instant about my children, and gave me a vision of the fork in the road and what would come to pass depending on my/our choice at this venture.  I chose Him.  I prayed, and began to talk to my love about what God had told me and what we were to do.  We were to leave Chicago.  If we didn’t it could have ETERNAL consequences.

Now if you have a spouse, you know that me coming home and saying, “We are leaving Chicago and you need to find a new job to do so.  Oh, and I am going to quit my job and home school all three children” over dinner did not go over so well with my spouse or my children who now had severe scales on their eyes.  Mine had just fallen off on certain areas of my pupils 6 hours earlier so I was a little nervous myself.  Especially since we hadn’t heard from God in years and I am saying “because God told me so”.  WHAT?!??!

Our house became insane immediately.  Teenagers were crying and yelling about how I was “ruining” their lives, and this was a daily occurrence for the next 6 months.  The love of my life was asking me, “are you sure you heard from God, because He didn’t tell me anything and I am good here.”

When you hear from God, and I was hungry again now that I had after “400” years of silence, nothing was going to stop me come HELL or HIGHWATER!  And let me tell you, when you take on the devil, as I have many times over in my life, it is not pretty.  The people you love the MOST on this earth are used against you.  But I stood my ground and we are now in Atlanta.  It hasn’t been easy but I have HOPE in my God, that He has a plan for ME.  A plan that He initiated before, and as, I was growing in my momma’s heart and womb. #Godisonmyside #obeyingGod

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.