His Faithfulness Precedes Him

I’m standing on this side of things hoped for, but yet unseen.  We’ve moved in and out of thecountry and across town more times than I can count over the course of our seven year marriage and we’re about to pick up roots one more time and move to a new town and a new calling. 

I don’t have the slightest doubt that this is what we are supposed to do. We’re leaning hard into Him for the big stuff, the God-sized stuff. 

I’m beginning to think it is all God-sized stuff.

A year and a half ago we moved back from the coast of West Africa. My belly was bulging with a wee one on the way, my husband had no job and we had nowhere to live. I remember that summer wrestling with anxiety over where we would sleep, where this little one would sleep, where we would call home.   

In the end my husband found a job in a new city and started it the week after Labor Day that year. We found a rental house that was affordable and more than we needed. All the big stuff was covered. God showed up in a big way for us. 

Still I had anxiety about life in general. I knew no one except some family that lived in the same city, but an hour away. An hour isn’t exactly within “Can I borrow a cup of sugar?” distance.  We began to hunt for a church. In the past this has been a frustrating task so we braced for awkward worship experiences, meet and greets and the inevitable getting to know you stuff. 

I hate “icebreakers”. Can I get an “Amen!”? 

What we didn’t realize is that God had already gone before us. We found a church within a couple of weeks and one of the pastors turned out to be an old friend. Still as a woman, particularly an expectant mama, I longed for someone who already knew me to put their arm around me and let me know that they saw me and were praying for me. 

Assurance came wrapped as a gift. 

A friend who I had never met gave me a baby gift. Did you catch that? A friend who I had never met gave me a baby gift. We were visiting a church small group for the first time and she had heard that I was pregnant. I now know this friend to be a crafting ninja and one of the kindest, sweetest, most giving women I know, but at the time I was shocked and surprised that she had a beautifully wrapped handmade gift for me the first time we met. 

That gift was more than a gift. It was a hug straight from God. It was the evidence of things that I had not seen in the midst of anxiety and fear. It was evidence that God goes before us into every circumstance and makes a way for the big and the small. 

A few weeks ago I had an emergency doctor’s appointment and I sent out a text to a group of local friends looking for someone to watch my now wild girl. Women that I never imagined being a part of my life a year and a half ago responded in unison to meet this need. God arranged for them to meet my need long before the moment the need was felt. 

I am confident that He is doing the same for you friend. He doesn’t play favorites. 

For women who are grounded in one place and doing life together- make sure you look around at those coming into your circles. You might be an answer to prayer. You might be the radical kindness that a newbie is in need of to make them feel at home, to make them feel like they belong in a new place.

A year and a half later and God’s call is taking us to another set of “new” everything. New home, new community, new church, new ministry. I’m standing on this side of faith and I’m scared that I won’t make any friends in the new town. 

I’m afraid that I won’t have anyone to watch my daughter when I have a doctor’s appointment. 

I’m tempted toward anxiety over a million things outside of my direct control. Some of you are sharing my shoes. You have moved to a new town away from community and family, your husband is without a job, you are a new mama and you feel isolated and alone. There are a million different versions of my shared story. 

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and God promises that He is always on the other side of life’s question marks with more than enough answers to our heart cries. Some of those answers come with faces and handmade gifts. 

I have no idea what my new community will be like. It might be hard from beginning to end, but undoubtedly God is there. He goes before us. His faithfulness precedes Him and makes it safe to follow His lead.