A Blindfolded Trust Fall

When I say that this year has been absolutely wild, I am not exaggerating in the least. I feel like my husband and I have been on the greatest trust fall of our lives, freefalling with no landing in sight! Now hear me when I say this, we serve a GOOD God, who will not let us down. But there are times when it may seem like he is not listening in the slightest, and it makes no sense to us at all. I will paint a picture for you, and just verbally, I'll leave the real painting to my legit artist husband. It's a miracle that I can paint inside the lines when I help him from time to time!

We started this year off with no work in sight, and that month turned into another month and then into four months. This didn't go without us doing all that we could to get work, there was A LOT of prayer, we advertised, put out posts, and called clients who had talked to us about potential work; but to no avail. It was the most frustrating time for us, we went through our savings and had help from family, and our wonderful church community who blessed us during that time. It was a humbling experience. Then to add to that, we knew that the rental house we were staying in was not going to be a place we wanted to further stay due to management changes and some ridiculous things they wanted to implement. My husband and I kept going back and forth, do we bite the bullet and sign our contract for another year, do we look for some other place to rent, do we want to try and buy? Which seemed really laughable since we didn't have any income coming in at the time. But God. We managed to get one job around the beginning of the new year, a custom painting for a friend of ours which was wonderful, any job was a blessing for us. You will never be able to persuade me that the Lord doesn't work things out behind the scenes, because let me tell you, he was straight scheming and we had no clue! Alan was almost completed with the painting so I spoke with our friend on a time for us to come over and hang it for her, and that's when things shifted. She began to let us know that she would be moving and that when that happened we could come install the painting in her new home. As we were talking something tugged at me to ask her about the house that she would be leaving, and threw out there that Alan and I were looking for a place to rent/rent to own. And wouldn't you know it, she considered the option and invited us over a few days later to talk details. The next thing we knew, we had talked about writing up a rent-to-own contract and so the planning began. Mind you, we still had no idea how this was going to work out, but we trusted the Lord through this process since we felt this was the direction the Lord was leading us. We knew that the plan was we would be moving in around mid-March before the contract with our rental house was over, and we were thrilled until things seemingly started to get rocky, with delay after delay with our friend and her closing it was looking like we may not be able to move and neither would she. It felt like the wind in our sails had completely died and we were yet again, at a standstill. We did our best to keep the faith and believe it would all work out according to the Lord's timing, and gosh was that hard! We had to extend our stay in our rental house and they graciously allowed us that courtesy while we were anxiously awaiting an answer about moving. We knew if things fell through we would only have a month to find a new place, which was so nervewracking. In all the crazy I had started to just look at other options of what was out there and the Holy Spirit quickly checked me and said "Did I ask you to start looking?" Oof...message heard loud and clear, let me just stay in my lane. Easter weekend rolled around and by the grace of God, everything fell into place and our friend was able to sign for her new house and we were able to know with reassurance that we would be able to move mid-April! But not only that, in the middle of the crazy, Alan felt like the Lord wanted him to paint a mural for free, and normally I'd be a little hesitant especially since he wanted to do this when we had no income coming in. But instead, I felt a secure peace that this was indeed what he needed to do. And in our obedience, in the middle of him painting that wall, he received a call and that next week he landed a job painting for the Astros at Minute Maid Park!!! When I tell you that the Lord blew us out of the water with this one, it's a giant understatement! After this, we couldn't keep up with the work that started pouring in, so much so that we are currently booked into the fall!!!

Phew! The Lord is good, He is faithful, and He is ALWAYS an on-time God. I hope you read this and feel encouraged, no matter the season of life you are in. We have seen it firsthand in our lives, and we are happily settled (not unpacked lol) in our new house! Evidence of His faithfulness. I leave you with this scripture that sang and danced around us during this time. Ephesians 3:20-21 "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."