Supernatural '17

So it's been a minute since I have put together a blog post. . . and by minute I mean 6 months. Oopsy. One of my best friends coined the term "supernatural '17" in the beginning of 2017 and it has stuck with me.  I don't typically make New Years resolutions but last December I prayed and asked the Lord to show me how He would like to continue to transform my life and my heart in the next year. One word kept coming to me over and over again.

Complacent.

I interpreted that as He was calling me not to be complacent in my walk, in my life or in my relationships.  From there I felt the need to reevaluate or consider a few areas of my life.  Here were the specific areas:

1. Our preschool.
2. Community at our church.
3. Finding a moms group.

The interesting thing about when God begins to transform your life is you see things that were perfectly fine last week or two months ago and out of nowhere begin to see where you could grow.

One of which was our kids preschool.  Kellen was going to join Bodie in June of 2017.  Bodie went to a great school so I couldn't figure out why I felt uneasy or didn't feel peace about it.  Talk about a first world problem.  But none the less we started touring other schools, applied to a few, prayed about it and trusted Him to provide. He provided an amazing mothers day out program that the boys started in August and I can't even begin to describe the difference it has made in our family.  Literally everyone is so much happier.  It's a perfect fit.  There was absolutely nothing wrong with the school we were at before but this change has been major for our family.

The second thing that came to my mind was our lack of community at our church.  Cole and I have been attending our church for a very long time.  We became members in 2012 and have both served in different areas of the church for years.  We also know a ton of people who attend because we are both basically from Knoxville.  But still we were missing a deeper level of community with fellow believers. This one was harder to figure out what God had in mind.  Cole is a social guy and his first instinct was to text 5 friends and "make" a life group for us.  I kept feeling this pull on my heart not to jump into this too quickly and to be open minded about what God had in store.  I don't want to bore ya'll with the details but basically we found our people.  We knew none of them prior to this.  One couple went to our church and we had never met them, the other moved to Knoxville in January of 2017.  Enough said.

So then there was the moms group.  I know so many of my extroverted friends don't understand why in the world this would be a thing.  There are like 4 moms groups that I know of right off of the top of my head in Knoxville and I am sure they are all super awesome.  I tend to be the kind of person that has like 5 best friends. forever.  Like forever.  So when I reached a point in my life when none of these said 5 best friends were stay at home moms or moms at all I found myself really needing to reevaluate.  Obviously those women are still my best friends forever but because I had never ever planned on being a stay at home mom I didn't really think about the fact that it would be lonely.  So again the Lord provided.  I have found myself in an awesome group of moms who meet monthly now, again with mostly people who I had never met and most of these women had never met prior to this as well.

So I am going to stick with "supernatural '17" because the Lord has provided things in my life I never knew I needed.  This has not been an easy year for my family.  We started a second company Moving Time and starting a business definitely has it's challenges. We are also a single income family and the real estate market has changed dramatically since Cole started selling 10 years ago. Basically I say all of that to say it hasn't been an easy road.  The first half of 2017 was actually one of the hardest years Cole and I have had in our 8 years of marriage and that includes infertility which wasn't the most fun I have ever had.

BUT.  The second half has been AMAZING.  He has provided again and again for us.  We trusted Him in the hard times, even when it literally made no sense and we didn't have a clue how He was going to bring us out of it.  But He did and he always does.  Sometimes it's 6 months, or 5 years or 20 years.  Which is horrifying in a sense but He always brings good and I believe that with my whole heart.

So there's my life update. Hoping to get back to this space again before supernatural '17 ends. :)