Good Hurt

     It's been five months since my last post. I didn't realize it had been that long; probably because we are still doing home repairs that make us absolutely dependent on our God to provide once again.
     Five months later, we are still "resting" from all that we have been through in the last year and a half.  It's amazing to me how long it takes a mind and heart to process change; what change brings to perspective.
     After 15 years as a youth pastor, Matt was burned out; Mentally, and physically, exhausted. The exhaustion not just from an immune disease. The way it has played out for him is times of depression, having no motivation to DO anything.
     Since moving back to IN, Matt become an insurance adjuster. When the kids and I visited Charlotte this past summer, many would ask what Matt was doing. I would tell them, but inside I was almost embarrassed. He wasn't in ministry with these individuals anymore.
     I've often wondered where that embarrassment came from for me. After months of processing with Jesus, I think I know the root. It's not embarrassment, it's hurt.
     Arizona was HARD. Arizona was LONELY. There were graces given - friendships made and provisions given. What I mean is that within my mind and heart it was difficult.
     My hurt was with Jesus.
     So often people ask why we left the Carolinas and then AZ. I never wanted to talk about AZ (still struggle a little). How do you tell people that you uprooted your whole family because God called you to a place just for, what we now believe, was for a time of transition? That God was OK with us struggling though months of loneliness? That you moved by faith and then it wasn't easy?
     Isn't that the truth of life though? The times that stretch us the most bring us to discovering hope is not in a place, or in another human being. Hope is Jesus - in my everyday, mundane world, knowing He is working in me.

{{{SIDE NOTE: Christians - Stop teaching that if you serve Jesus everything in life will be roses! Christianity started by Jesus being killed!}}}

     I have a friend who collects license plates. I asked him if he had AZ, which he did not. When visiting Charlotte, I pulled up to their house and took out both of our AZ plates, fully intending to give him both because I didn't want them; didn't want to be reminded of that time. It was at that point I  heard the voice of my God say, "You need to keep one of those plates. I called you to AZ; My hand moved you there. It is part of your story. Keep it."
 
     Jesus was killed, yes. But Jesus came back to life, never to die again. That life He gives to me.
   
     I have the license plate on my desk. I don't like it yet, but I am learning to embrace it.