The God Of All Comfort

After our 2 young boys went to live with Jesus years ago, my husband wanted to move out of our house – he wanted to start fresh somewhere new.

I fought it.  Unfortunately I was not always the obedient wife.  I had a hard time thinking of leaving our neighborhood, friends, family and church home.  These people, after all, were the ones who’d stood by us so firmly through our heartbreaks, and who continued to support us with our remaining son Jeffrey.

But God has a way of softening even the hardest heart.  Sometimes He does that by chipping away at our stubborn self-will.

So it was that as Jeffrey was finishing up grade school, I was beginning to think that perhaps moving would be okay after all.

We had taken a couple vacations down to Sunriver in Central Oregon and had loved it.  Yes it could get dreadfully cold at the strangest times (one year it snowed on the 4th of July, and then the next day got up close to 80°), but it was sunny for the majority of the year – whether cold or not.  Gary also really loved the Bend area which you drive through on the way to Sunriver.

One day while Gary was home, he sat in his office praying.  He’d found out that the office where he worked was going to be closing soon, and he was laying his heart bare about what his next steps should be.

All of a sudden, he felt like the Lord was telling him soon the time would come to move out of the area.

Gary asked the Lord, “But where should we go?”

Then he sensed the Lord asking him:  “Where would you like to go?”

Gary blurted out:  “Bend, Oregon.”

He felt peace after that, yet there was still a burning question:  “Lord, what about a job?”

He felt the Lord telling him:  “Just as I told Abraham to up and move even though he didn’t know where he was going, so I’m asking you to trust me.”

Whoa!!!

When this all happened I was actually okay with it, so we began the process of getting our house ready to put on the market, and when it was ready it sold quickly.  This was the summer before Jeffrey was to start Junior High.

God was with us every step of the way as we traveled down to Bend from Seattle and put all our stuff in storage while we looked for a home – and that included providing a job for Gary!

However we discovered that buying a house in Bend was out of our price range.  So our realtor took us to a little city called Redmond not too far outside of Bend, where we found a beautiful home.

We loved it there, but as the start of the school year neared, there was one issue I found myself starting to stress about:  Was this small school district going to be able to provide everything Jeffrey needed?  After all, as I mentioned in my last post Taking The Backseat, school districts can be very different from each other.

Well, surprise!  When we arrived for our initial meeting with the school staff, we discovered that their new principal was a Christian who came from a large school district in the Portland area, and she had worked in the Special Ed Department for many years!  As we left the school that day, Gary and I looked at each other in disbelief.  We’d never had such an easy school meeting, ever!!!

It says in Luke 12:22-34 that God simply wants us to trust Him.  He knew exactly what Jeffrey would need, and He graciously provided us a brand new home in just the right school district.  And – He brought us to a wonderful church home where we made friends quickly.

So when you feel like God’s telling you something but you’re starting to stress, take out your flyswatter and squash that anxiety bug!  Your Father’s got you covered – always.