a different season this spring
If you guys have never been to Sioux City, it is probably time for you to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to our good Lord. Jon and I are stuck here for a few days while we wait out a few appointments later on in the week, and find ourselves recklessly slandering this place without pause. Spring makes me too optimistic, I've decided, and all I brought to wear is shorts, tshirts, and a maxi skirt (not ideal for rainy, muddy farmland). So my outfit (one long-sleeved shirt and yoga pants) has remained the same (both daytime and nighttime) since Monday, which is surely a major turn-on for my husband. My conclusion from this week: I do better as a pessimist, in the winter.
Speaking of winter, Jon and I have some news: we are moving to Minnesota!
This exclamation point has meant many things in the past few weeks since finding out, but currently (I promise) it does mean excitement.
We spent the last year preparing, support raising, and paying rent for our future home in Ames. I began building relationships with the girls. We cast vision, we set up our apartment. And, one Friday morning, the FIRST warm Friday of the year, we were told it was all for naught. No more Ames, now it's Mankato, Minnesota. Staffing issues were the reason, and it is not the fault of anyone, besides a series of unfortunate events.
I never realized I was holding onto Ames so tightly until it was pulled away from me.
But after a long weekend, the tears, denial, doubt, happy hours, and angst gnawed away everything else until we had to answer the one question remaining: Do you trust Me? Will you follow?
(I would like to take this moment to give a shoutout to my man Andrew Peterson, one of the few Christian artists whose[non-worship] music I actually find theological, musically decent, and stirring; you'll never read this but it was your music that walked me through this time.)
We began walking on this new path. Though our hearts were cautious, hesitant, uncertain, was a boldness in our steps that somehow grew from our lack of options. There is nothing else, so we walk. There is nothing else to seek, no one else to trust, no selfish desires to pursue. All was left was Him and this path He paved for us, there was nothing left to do but take a step.
This was the response of people we told:
"Mankato area is so beautiful!"
"Oh, I've driven through there. It's beautiful."
"Really? I've been there! That's a very beautiful town."
Logically, my first thought was, "you've heard of Mankato?" because I had to Google it, guys. And either you're wrong, or Google Images is wrong because "beautiful" was not one of the words that popped into my head as these pictures loaded on my screen.. To me, a town that doesn't have a Trader Joe's cannot be beautiful, but seriously how have all of these random people we told visited this place?
Two weeks after finding out our new home would be a town that rhymes with the word "tomato," we found ourselves driving up north to visit and debunk this myth that Mankato is beautiful, and prove that all these people were just trying to make us feel better. Because I was at that point much too bratty and bitter for false encouragement from people who must have just not known what to say.
The voyage up there was nothing short of cringe-worthy, which helped justify the bitterness. But just before we passed a sign that welcomed us to Mankato, the scenery changed. A bluff outlined the western side of the town. Trees grew everywhere. And though it was admittedly no Fiji, Boston-in-the-fall, European landscape, it was the first time I'd ever thought midwestern scenery was pretty during late February (when the world is dead and brown). And as we stayed for three days in this town to which God was apparently calling us, more beauty unfolded.
We drove by a Chipotle. Glorious.
We were told of a cookie shop that delivers. Divine.
My boss is a mother who didn't pull out completely out of ministry when she had kids. Ideal.
We were told we would have to have our Bible studies on the same night, because our marriage is the most important. Wonderful.
Our boss's pastor (whom we never met) told him he wants to help us move in. What?
Our bosses offered to look at apartments for us, said we could live with them for awhile if need be. Overwhelmed.
Little things, all throughout the week. This place is stunning, and I'm not talking about the landscape. I'm not even talking about Mankato. Rather, wherever our Father leads us, it is always magnificent. Rarely expected, often not in the ways we think, but always beautiful. The path leading to it often makes us cringe and hesitate the first steps, but it is paved with masked glory. And the beauty may not astound us immediately, but often creeps in slowly until it smacks us in the face and we find ourselves on our knees; not unlike when we first found out our lives would be thrown upside down, but this time out of awe instead of anger.
Our steps are firmer because beauty is awaiting us, in Mankato, and wherever we go beyond that (even, maybe...North Dakota? *shudder*).
So thank you, random people who reminded us that Mankato is beautiful, for it is where He has led us.
Listen to my fave A-Pete song here
Speaking of winter, Jon and I have some news: we are moving to Minnesota!
This exclamation point has meant many things in the past few weeks since finding out, but currently (I promise) it does mean excitement.
We spent the last year preparing, support raising, and paying rent for our future home in Ames. I began building relationships with the girls. We cast vision, we set up our apartment. And, one Friday morning, the FIRST warm Friday of the year, we were told it was all for naught. No more Ames, now it's Mankato, Minnesota. Staffing issues were the reason, and it is not the fault of anyone, besides a series of unfortunate events.
I never realized I was holding onto Ames so tightly until it was pulled away from me.
But after a long weekend, the tears, denial, doubt, happy hours, and angst gnawed away everything else until we had to answer the one question remaining: Do you trust Me? Will you follow?
(I would like to take this moment to give a shoutout to my man Andrew Peterson, one of the few Christian artists whose[non-worship] music I actually find theological, musically decent, and stirring; you'll never read this but it was your music that walked me through this time.)
We began walking on this new path. Though our hearts were cautious, hesitant, uncertain, was a boldness in our steps that somehow grew from our lack of options. There is nothing else, so we walk. There is nothing else to seek, no one else to trust, no selfish desires to pursue. All was left was Him and this path He paved for us, there was nothing left to do but take a step.
This was the response of people we told:
"Mankato area is so beautiful!"
"Oh, I've driven through there. It's beautiful."
"Really? I've been there! That's a very beautiful town."
Logically, my first thought was, "you've heard of Mankato?" because I had to Google it, guys. And either you're wrong, or Google Images is wrong because "beautiful" was not one of the words that popped into my head as these pictures loaded on my screen.. To me, a town that doesn't have a Trader Joe's cannot be beautiful, but seriously how have all of these random people we told visited this place?
Two weeks after finding out our new home would be a town that rhymes with the word "tomato," we found ourselves driving up north to visit and debunk this myth that Mankato is beautiful, and prove that all these people were just trying to make us feel better. Because I was at that point much too bratty and bitter for false encouragement from people who must have just not known what to say.
The voyage up there was nothing short of cringe-worthy, which helped justify the bitterness. But just before we passed a sign that welcomed us to Mankato, the scenery changed. A bluff outlined the western side of the town. Trees grew everywhere. And though it was admittedly no Fiji, Boston-in-the-fall, European landscape, it was the first time I'd ever thought midwestern scenery was pretty during late February (when the world is dead and brown). And as we stayed for three days in this town to which God was apparently calling us, more beauty unfolded.
We drove by a Chipotle. Glorious.
We were told of a cookie shop that delivers. Divine.
My boss is a mother who didn't pull out completely out of ministry when she had kids. Ideal.
We were told we would have to have our Bible studies on the same night, because our marriage is the most important. Wonderful.
Our boss's pastor (whom we never met) told him he wants to help us move in. What?
Our bosses offered to look at apartments for us, said we could live with them for awhile if need be. Overwhelmed.
Little things, all throughout the week. This place is stunning, and I'm not talking about the landscape. I'm not even talking about Mankato. Rather, wherever our Father leads us, it is always magnificent. Rarely expected, often not in the ways we think, but always beautiful. The path leading to it often makes us cringe and hesitate the first steps, but it is paved with masked glory. And the beauty may not astound us immediately, but often creeps in slowly until it smacks us in the face and we find ourselves on our knees; not unlike when we first found out our lives would be thrown upside down, but this time out of awe instead of anger.
Our steps are firmer because beauty is awaiting us, in Mankato, and wherever we go beyond that (even, maybe...North Dakota? *shudder*).
So thank you, random people who reminded us that Mankato is beautiful, for it is where He has led us.
Listen to my fave A-Pete song here
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