Changing Seasons

"It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Deut. 31:8

As this year comes to a close I find myself more emotional that in the past. Maybe it's because I'm sending off another to school next year, but I think it's more than that. This season has been almost too good to be true that I do not want to see it end. 

Let me try to articulate best the way God has provided in a changing season for us. This year last time we were finishing out what was a near impossible year. I was so sick, my family struggling. My two oldest were worn and had needs greater than what we were able to fill at the time. One of their teachers had been out for more than a month and the guidance counselor had gone on maternity leave. We were ready for school to be just done in so many ways, I wanted them home with me. As we close this year I just don't feel the same. I don't want it to end. I want to hold on to every moment and not let go. 

When a season is fruitful, full of blessings and good you don't want it to end. I think I hold tightly to this reality more than I ever have before. Maybe its part of the reason I mourned my life with a cancer diagnosis so greatly. It was the realization of new change that I didn't want to accept. When things are hard, emotional, and messy we want them to pass. I am sitting right now in a season that I don't want to pass. 

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" Ecclesiastes 3

I am surrounded
By the arms of the father
I am surrounded
By songs of deliverance

You split the sea
So I could walk right through it
My fears were drowned in perfect love
You rescued me
And I could stand and sing
I am a child of God... 

-No Longer Slaves, Bethel Music

Years ago when we were looking for a preschool for my kiddos we looked no further than the place across the street. If we got in, the location factor outweighed any other factor in any other place. Have you ever wondered why God puts you in certain place? I used to. See this place that loved and nurtured all my babies was nothing less than exactly where God knew we would need to be. As we graduated from here this week, Ella moving on to Kindergarten and Grant going to where all his sisters will be, I could not contain my gratitude, my thanks, and my tears of Joy. It was the place that God had placed us, that would carry us through an impossible season. I cannot even in this space speak every way this place provided for us. This place loved my babies so well. They offered a safe and loving place for our family. When I got sick they stepped up and stepped into our mess and filled every need they could as they were able. This is part of the note I wrote to them as we walked out of that place for the last time this week:

Dear SSPC, 

How can we ever question God's goodness and provision when he so clearly plans our path for us so perfectly? This place has been nothing short of a beautiful blessing to me and my family. God gave us this place long before he knew the role that you would play in our family and the way you would walk through impossible with us. I will never be able to thank you all for your selfless sacrifice of loving my kids when they needed it most. Showing up for us when you didn't even know how and doing it with such love and devotion. It is so hard to say goodbye to a place and people that have carried us through. Thank you for everything you have done for us, we are forever grateful for the impact you have had on our family and we will always care and love this place deeply. 

Always choosing Joy, 

Joanna

If you would have told me that my kids would go to private school  I would have called you a fool. This was never OUR plan. Even the year before my best friend was considering this and I was angry she would pull her kids our of our community and send them to another place than our obvious community school. Be careful how you judge God's plans for someone's life, it may just be the avenue he is using to change YOU. It was just this event and her family going here, that I witnessed the way they carried her through a hard year of her best friend (me) going through cancer journey. People from her place even reached out to me with prayers and support from a place that I didn't even know. There were many other events that I could tell you about, where God's hand used a change of a season for us to consider a new place for our kids. It wasn't that we didn't like where we were, God was just directing us down another path. At the end of last year we were looking ahead and scared. We were not sure what life would look like for our kids, for Kev, or for me. The reality at this time a year ago was that we needed to think about the future like we never had, and in that trust God to show us where he wanted us. 

We started praying and asking God last summer that if our babies needed something else that he would clearly open up the right doors for us so that we knew which path to walk... and that is just what he did. 

 "And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." Phil 4:19

My older girls will walk out of these doors next week closing a chapter of their first year at their school and I am already crying, everyday. Their teachers, the biggest hearts I've ever known. If I really think about it I see the exact two people that my girls needed this year for their needs. A perfect answer to specific and bold prayers. They filled emotional needs, spiritual needs, and the needs that changed each and every day as my babies walked out of my arms into theirs. It's too good to move on from here. I feel like we are in the best place and the best time and change for me bring emotions of fear and unknown. It's amazing to see the way God writes a story for each and every one of us. And when we give up what we thought best for what he knows best, we can begin to see our life through a lens where the circumstances of our day are determined by way more than what we desire. Friends all I do is look back at the events that have carried us to today and I know that for what God has done in the past to sustain and provide he will continue to in tomorrow. So if you are like me and question the unknown tomorrow be confident that God is already there, working for us what is good and best, not for us, but for Himself, and for all his perfect Glory may be revealed through us. 

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good..." Romans 8:28

"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also." John 14 - As just as he prepares our Heavenly place he already has the plans of our life in his hands. 

Dear School, head of, principle, and teachers, 

God gave us this school. He laid it in our laps when we were desperate for answers in a partnership for our family and children. Everything about it has been an answer to our deepest prayers in our darkest times, and this year has been more outstanding that we could have ever imagined. We never considered a place like this for our children until a season changed for our family and we had different needs than we had ever had before. I remember our first interview with Dan like it was yesterday, we walked into an unknown territory not at all knowing what to expect. It didn't take but seconds for us to realize that this was our new place. One that we would trust God had provided to us for some reason. As we close out this year I cannot express the thankfulness to this community for everything it has been to our children and our family. There is a love and devotion in this place that is not something that can just be created, but comes with a sacrifice of God's calling in our lives. We are forever grateful for the partnership this place has had with us in teaching and raising our babies to grow as children of God. I can't imagine our lives without this change even though it seemed scary at first to accept. In one year the impact this place has had will be marked on our hearts forever. We trust fully that God knows what lies ahead for our family and hope that this place will continue to be a part of his beautiful story for our lives. One where He sustains, He provides, and one where everyone will see that His way are always better than ours. To the teachers that have spent hours of time with my girls, the impact you have had will forever be a treasure to me, and to them. We prayed for you before you even entered into our lives. Thank you are words that do not even begin to describe my gratitude and overwhelming joy. 

Always choosing joy, 

Joanna

Summer I am ready for you. But it will not be easy to close this chapter in our lives. It has been too good to be true. We had no clue what path we were going to be walking, we still don't. But this year has just been more evidence that God is always taking care of us, even in the hard days. He knows what we need before we need it and if I can just continue to surrender to his plan being always better than mine, I will continue to see that this life is better being lived as HIS instead of MINE. 

We all have a place. God always has a plan. Do you ever think about where you are and how you got there? What is God doing with you while you are in this place for this season? This life, it's a gift, precious and too short, but for our time here what is his purpose for you, today, in this place that he has placed you in?