The Great Road North

So we moved to Alaska! Crazy, amazing, beautiful Alaska. From Texas. 2,598 miles. Are we crazy? I don’t think so. Then, why, you ask? Let me tell you the story! Because it is a story worth telling. One that is still being written by the Lord and one that I’m excited to see unfold every day.

Rewind to last summer, the summer of 2011. Tony and I were both working at Pine Cove. During this summer, Tony was a Straw Boss and I was a Mama Ruth. Basically, Tony and I were leaders of a very intentional discipleship program for guys and girls who just graduated from high school. The second part of the summer, I was a Senior Counselor for Camp In the City, Pine Cove’s first summer to develop a program with the Boy’s and Girl’s Club as an outreach day camp for inner city youth.

We had already set the date of our wedding for October 29, 2011. A lot was riding on both of us (or even just one of us) finding a job so that we could begin planning where we were going to live and start thinking about the future. We both took jobs at camp through the Lord’s leading. Even though we could have been using that summer to find jobs, we felt the Lord wanted us at Pine Cove that summer. I am SO glad I made that decision and wouldn’t trade it for anything. I will never forget the time I spent with six high school girls, walking with them through hard work of the heart, really digging deep and healing wounds with the Lord and walking together in community, forgiveness, and learning what it means to be a child of God. While teaching and leading these girls, the Lord was teaching me that I offer him nothing, that I don’t need to, and yet I am accepted, known, and extravagantly loved by Him.

At the end of the summer, I was working at Camp in the City and Tony was still working as a Strawboss. We had both been going on job interviews throughout the summer, praying together about our future and having to pry our hands off of the control of our life and give it to the Lord. As the summer went on, we struggled with finding jobs and Tony began to look for jobs in Alaska, where his parents lived. We had talked about Alaska when we first got engaged, but hadn’t really seriously considered it as an option until now. There was a job open in the Department of Homeland Security with the state, and Tony and I began to discuss his pursuing this job further.

Through tears and tears and praying and talking, we decided to pursue it as an option but to continue looking in Texas. In a crazy turn of events, I got an interview with the Frisco School District for an 8^th grade English and coaching position. Two days later, on the last day of camp, I got offered the job in Texas.

So here we are. I got offered a job- something we had been hoping for! And yet, there was something missing. Something didn’t feel right. Why is it that when we get something we want there is sometimes a little disappointment that goes along with it? I am realizing, through endless patience and ceaseless love on the Lord’s part, that it is ONLY the Lord that I need and nothing else. Not a job, not a husband, not the answers, not the plan for my future. ONLY the Lord can fulfill me. And so it was with this job. You get something you want, and you realize… this is so unfulfilling, this is not what I need, even though it seemed like the MOST important thing in the world. 

That weekend we had a decision to make: take the job in Texas or pursue the possibility of a job in Alaska?

Answer: We decided the Lord wanted us in Alaska. I could tell you that we went adventure- crazy, that some sort of insane-in-the-membrane disease affected us and we went off the rocker. I could tell you that I regret my decision every day, that I can’t believe how far Tony would take me from my family, my home for the last 23 years, and everything comfortable I’ve ever known.

But that wouldn’t be true. And it should never be about being comfortable. In reality, it was the easiest decision I ever made. I felt such a peace about it and I knew it was what I was supposed to do. I wanted to obey the Lord in his leading of my heart. I wanted to follow my husband. I wanted to do ministry in a place that is in dire need of Christian leaders.

I LOVE being in Alaska. It has grown me and stretched me and challenged me, but it has put me in a beautiful place of trusting the Lord. I’m not going to lie: I miss my Mom and my sister and my friends so much. Building a new community is hard. But the Lord is overflowing in his love for me and how he shows me that every day. Tony and I have grown together in the adventure of Alaska, and in trusting the Lord with our lives and future.

We came to Alaska thinking we came here to minister to other people, but in turn the people here in Alaska have ministered to us. We have had an overwhelming outpouring of support and love and friendship. And even though I am still looking for a job and we are still looking for a place to live, there is so much hope. Eternal hope. We have salvation, we know the Lord! And because of that, every day is a celebration of our great Savior and undeserved grace.

3 things I’m learning:

1)    Adversity is needed. It is rich, refreshing, renewing, and a sweet reminder. In the difficulties that came through our move, I have begun to see the Lord in a new way. I needed Him, I am desperate for Him. I always forget how much I need the Lord until I am forced to gulp in His love, am recklessly longing for it. That can only come in a time of testing and growth.

2)    Discontentment is a feeding fire that grows more discontentment. We all struggle with the phrase, “What if?”, or “If Only?”, or “I wish”. Those phrases lead to sinful thinking. It would be easy for me to go back and say if only I didn’t work at camp, or if only I said yes to the job, or if only we had a place to live. But the truth is God has ORDAINED my life to be so. And my thinking back and wishing for more is a slap in the face to the Lord who is designing my perfect plan.

As Jim Elliot puts it: “What is actual, is actual. What might have been is simply not. Therefore I must not question as though God had robbed me of things that are not. But the things that are, are good, God-given, and enriched. And I must not let the longing of those things (that are not) spoil the appetite of my living.”

3)    God loves us so much more than we could ever know. As my husband Tony puts it, “ If I were truly to be honest, one of the greatest obstacles to my acting in Faith is the belief that God loves me more than I do.”

His plan for me is always right. God is not a God of mistakes. I was meant to go to Alaska. That plan was in place even before I made that decision. I can walk in the faith that God endlessly loves me, that He will take care of me and my family, and that he will more than meet my needs. I pray my life is for God’s glory and not my own.

                                                                Psalm 16

"Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. 

I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.”

As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,

in whom is all my delight.

The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;

their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out

or take their names on my lips.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;

you hold my lot.

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;

in the night also my heart instructs me.

I have set the Lord always before me;

because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;

my flesh also dwells secure.

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life;

in your presence there is fullness of joy; 

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

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