IT'S OFFICIAL!

I have always believed God must have an awesome since of humor. After all he made laughter and hilarious humans! All week we have been anxious about Gus getting accepted to Southern Seminary. We have spent all this time and money on the house, looking for houses in Louisville and making all these plans and he hadn't even been accepted to the seminary.  We were really rolling along on our feelings that this was God's plan for us.  He was told it may take longer than the usual three to five days to receive a reply to his application since it is nearing the July deadline and the school gets so many applications in May.  So it has been almost eight days since he received notification that they had received everything to complete his application.  They told us he would receive an email or a letter.  Since everything is done by computers these days, we assumed it would be email and have been checking Gus' email three or four times a day for the last eight days! Nothing.... So in our nightly prayer time together we have been praying that God confirm if this is His will and please send us an email.  Nothing....

Yesterday we had the new carpet installed. Everything was everywhere and constantly being moved from room to room and there was no time to get on the computer.  But it was in the back of both our minds all morning.  Finally the carpet was done and we were feeling so good about how the house was looking that we both were silently saying "Whatever you want God, we won't worry about it anymore"!

The carpet was finished and we had decided to run over to the mall and grab some lunch since we have barely been out of this house in weeks.  We grab the mail on our way to the car and there it was - five minutes after the last major house project was completed a letter from Southern Seminary was in our mailbox.  It was very thin and we started thinking like you use to when you received college letters - thin envelope means rejection, fat envelope means acceptance.  I thought we were all going to throw up and it seemed like forever that Gus held the envelope and we just stared at it.  Finally, Zachary says "what are you waiting for!"  Oh those first four words - "it is my privilege"!  We all started screaming and jumping around.  It was wonderful!  So after all our anxious moments, God delivers his confirmation five minutes after the last major house project was done.  What a sense of humor our Lord has and how wonderful He is!  All in His timing and all in His way.  All to His glory this journey will be!

The big "D"

Being the human that I am, I knew that it would come and so it has.  The big "D". D-O-U-B-T! I have felt much doubt about this seminary adventure this past week.  Our goal was to have the house on the market by the end of April because we know spring is the best time to sell a house. It is now May and we have finished maybe 1/2 of what has to be done before we can list the house.  Every day seems to create something else that has to be done.  At first it was ok, I knew we were working every day on something that needed to be done no matter how small it seemed.  Now, we discovered that seminary classes start August 15th instead of mid-September like Gus thought.  So I let the D-O-U-B-T start creeping in that there is no way we can make it to Kentucky by then - WE DON'T EVEN HAVE OUR HOUSE FOR SALE YET! D-O-U-B-T!

Then my son calls us to say he is officially engaged.  We knew it was coming soon, but since it wasn't official it was easy not to think about it.  Now that it is real, I don't want to leave my baby!  Sometimes it crossed my mind that we would be almost 14 hours away from him. A few tears would drop and then I would put the thought aside until he called or sent me a message and then it would creep up again.  Now that there are wonderful wedding plans that will be going on only 3 hours away, it is now much harder to think about being 14 hours away.  D-O-U-B-T!

Added to those two big "D's", Zachary is really beginning to feel the reality that we are leaving family, friends, and the biggest thing to him - Ryan. Our house has been in total disorganization for a month now, in 30 days Gus will be unemployed, he doesn't have a new job, and we have no new place lined up to live in.  This has really begun to weigh on the mind of my 12-year-old and he had a huge meltdown last week.  He was so upset, my heart just broke for him. D-O-U-B-T!

On the flip side of all this, I am excited about all God is going to teach us through all this. I feel He is going to change us all beyond what we can imagine.  He is already teaching me that Carol, the order-loving, routine-needing, hates being out of my comfort zone, control-loving, doubting Thomas, can only survive this with His strength and His alone. NO D-O-U-B-T ABOUT THAT!