Living the Life.

I am living the life. (the one I didn’t know I wanted.)

If you ask me when I first knew my life wasn’t going to look like I imagined it would, I’d tell you that it was when my husband told me he wanted to be a pastor. I never imagined being a pastor’s wife, nor have I ever had a desire to be one...EVER! Nonetheless, two years after our “I do’s”, we were not only pastoring a church, but we were PLANTING said church. To add more shock to these unexpected happenings, God led us to plant Living Waters Family Church in the middle of rural Kansas in a town of 350 people. There are no extra zeros after that number folks! Courtland, Kansas consisted of THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY small-town people who didn’t look like me, sound like me or grow up like me. And you know what? I treasure those seven and a half years, big time. Yes, there were a whole lot of firsts and moments of being hoisted from my comfort zone. But it was in those moments that a tank full of experience and life lessons were gained and learned. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. 

But if you ask me when I first knew that my life was going to look absolutely UNIMAGINABLE, I’d tell you it was when we realized that our daughter may never speak again or ever walk on her own. And like the first time life threw me a curve ball with being in full-time ministry in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, this realization came and comes with unexchangeable life lessons and a perspective on life that I am beyond grateful for. If you asked me when I was a teenager if I wanted to be the mom of a child with such severe needs, I would’ve been terrified of the very thought. Trust me, we’ve had some terrifying moments with our baby girl in her 16 years of special life. But as the saying goes, hindsight really is 20/20. And my life is full of a ton of messy, beautiful stuff  I never knew I wanted. 

I heard someone say once that obstacles are opportunities to walk in your greatness. I wish I could remember who to thank for that little nugget because it rings in my ears at every unplanned obstacle. If life was always perfect and easy-breezy, there would be no opportunities to grow towards our very best versions of ourselves. It causes my husband and I to take an “out of the box” approach in pretty much every area of our lives from faith to finances. We don’t just listen to or read scripture. WE INGEST IT. It is simply a survival strategy for us to embrace something that empowers us and is perfectly applicable to our lives. After our season of pastoring full-time was over we both decided to become entrepreneurs. We knew we needed time flexibility to be able to be with our daughter at the heavy rotation of doctor’s appointments, therapies and hospital stays. There was no way we could be the kind of caregivers she needed us to be if we took nine to fives. So I had to get rid of my expectation of working in Corporate America and be open to other income opportunities. I not only found one that is incredibly fulfilling, it allows me to use some of the same gifts and talents I had planned to use in the area of business management. My husband became focused on increasing the value of his time so he had more of it to be an active dad, partner in life to me, and last but not least, more freely perform whatever ministerial tasks God may will Him to do. 

In addition to being able to own and work my own virtual franchise that I have the luxury to work from anywhere, I answered the humbling yet, ever-increasingly rewarding call to educate our two boys at home. Umm...homeschooling is for sure on that list of things I never thought I wanted to do or thought I EVEN COULD DO! How is it that I have enjoyed it so much? On top of just loving the valuable time I’ve had with my boys, there is no doubt that it’s been the absolute best thing for the educational advancements and successes we’ve seen in our boys since exiting the public school system. Had I not already made the decision to earn from home, the decision to homeschool would’ve been much harder. Despite our modern culture’s influence on womanhood, my husband and I believe that a mother’s influence or the lack thereof is POWERFUL. So I am forever grateful for all the time I have with my children at home. Having said that, since I own a business, I do get to take trips to unwind and hang up my mommy-teacher hat from time to time. Win-Win. 

Loving the beach life!

 All of this brings me to our recent excursion to sunny Florida. Going south for the winter is something older, retired, much lighter skinned than us people do. Not black people with kids still in school who are still actively earning their living. But again, because of this sweet girl God gave us with all these special needs, we decided to skip the cold weather her body so ardently dislikes and live in Jacksonville, Florida for three months. Thinking outside of the box has become a habit for us because now we realize that with God’s instruction and guidance, there is absolutely NO reason at all why we cannot live the abundant life Christ came, bled and died for us to have. We don’t live the kind of life we always wanted. We live the kind of life we never knew that we wanted. There are people God means for us to touch and we can’t do that if we live a life full of limitation and regret. After 16 years of being parents to a precious soul who gives us giant doses of joy every day with her contagious smile, we know that her Creator has everything already figured out. We just try and do our best to seek Him, obey Him and follow His lead. Nothing else really matters at this point to us. The fact that she can’t speak or do anything for herself is only a temporary circumstance. It is not and will not ever be something that steals our joy or defeats the best life we were created to live. We choose instead, to keep on living, as they say, “The good life”, however special and unique it may be!