It’s interesting how some events impact the trajectory of your life’s story.
In 2014 I transitioned web host servers, and in the process lost a large selection of blog posts documenting our life and struggles with it over the past few years. Instead of moving forward with writing, denying the masses of an opportunity to read this amazing blog, I chose to simply allow my Facebook posts to be sufficient. (our time with Open Life, our first pregnancy and loss, our transition to Life Point, our move to Renton, etc)
As if that wasn’t a huge shock to the global community, other events then occurred. I called my friend Brad who was living in Nixa Missouri to see if I could fly down and visit. Mostly I was curious of this strange state called Missouri…I knew it was on our map somewhere in the middle, but honestly without the help of Siri I was pretty lost. Geography isn’t my strong point.
That simple phone call resulted in my submitting an application for an operations role with North Point Church.
I was curious.
I’m always open to Jesus leading our family into new adventures, constantly asking that he use us to further his kingdom and church in ways that only he can. But I honestly hadn’t considered moving 2000 miles.
Oh, and we had just brought our second child, Ms Emily, into the world.
So here we were. I was satisfied serving with a local church in Renton, WA. Sheena was loving her job with Valley Medical in Renton, WA. We had a 2 year old son, Jack and a newborn daughter, Emily. All of our immediate family lived in the Northwest. To move would mean taking grandkids away from constant interaction with grandparents. It would mean moving away from friends we were super close to. It would mean moving to an area of the world that we had never envisioned living.
I submitted my application knowing that I could always say no if the job was ever offered. It was offered. We said Yes.
Too many things happened that confirmed that Jesus was in this. Could we have said no? Sure!
And things would’ve been fine. But we said yes because we want our lives to be a good story. Jesus was going to use someone to make a difference in the North Point Church community, and if he was inviting us to be part of it, then why would we let fear of the unknown stop us?
A few weeks later, in July of 2015, we moved all of our belongings 2000 miles to our new house in Nixa, Mo. Sheena started working at Cox Hospital, and I began the journey of serving the people of North Point.
A phone call.
Trajectory of the location of our life was changed by a phone call.
Will we live in Nixa, Mo forever? Possibly. But we have no idea; because our lives are committed to following Jesus into the areas that he leads. I firmly believe in being fully planted and bloom where you are planted. Our story is one of being a blessing wherever Jesus invites us.
All it takes is a phone call.