Roots..... (Part 2)

Part one can be found here.

While driving with the hubs a couple weeks ago I asked him his thoughts on 2013.
Given his usual lack of enthusiasm for new year's resolutions I expected his response to be quite sarcastic. Much to my surprise, he did not reply with, "I will eat all of my meals with chop sticks" or "I declare 2013 a year without body hair." Instead he replied, "I'm excited to put down some roots."

His statement completely caught me off guard, but the more I pondered it, the more I realized I couldn't agree more.

You see, the last 6 years have been ones full of change. We've moved 4 times, purchased two houses, Bob's completed his Masters and begun his PH.D, I worked full-time then moved to part-time, we changed churches, made two babies, and Bob continues to make ends meet with a combo of ministry and construction. It's been hard to find stability a midst all of these changes.

Coupled with the change were questions we seemed to constantly be asking ourselves "what's next?" "where are we going?" "Is this what we need to be doing?" While the journey to find these answers has been fun, it's also been exhausting.

Thankfully, those questions have begun to decrease and there's a new sense of stability that's come from being at our wonderful church home, Redeemer.

I can't say enough good things about Redeemer and what's it's done for Bob and I.
Since being there (to name a few):
-My heart has sprung to life as teaching and people speak into my life. (This is huge given
  the state my mind was in prior to Redeemer-for another post).
-Bob was given an opportunity to serve at Redeemer, which grew to a full-time position and he's
  loving it!
-My husband is surrounded with a community of men who care for him and want to see him grow
  in the Lord and in his gifts.
-We appreciate the city in a new way. Our church loves KC and considers it a joy to serve the city. In  
  that comes an infectious love for all things KC: the food, people, music, art, and even the moderate
  pace of life. (Prior to this, I was disenchanted with the idea of staying and couldn't wait to leave).
- We've come to know some amazing people and are excited about the community we've found.

All of the above has solidified our desire to stay in KC and raise our family here.
For so long, we viewed our time in this city as temporal. To have a different mindset, one that sees our situation as long term (at least until God moves us), grants excitement and some unexpected relief.

A part of this newfound understanding is finding a home we want to raise our family in. Currently, we live next door to family and are surrounded by the rest of our family. This has been amazing and it'll be sad to leave them, but we feel a unified desire to move back to the heart of KC. Previously, we didn't care too much about where we purchased houses, because we didn't think we'd be here long. Now that we'd like to stay, all of that has changed and I think it's really exciting!

Bob and I have been looking at neighborhoods and we think we've found where we'd like to move. Obviously, there's a lot to be done before this can become a reality. In an effort to be wise and not rush things, we've decided to make this year the year we get all of our ducks in a row, freeing us to move should a house catch our eye in the future.

Another big piece to this venture will be our finances; we're aware this will be our greatest obstacle. Especially, because we hope to get me home full-time within the year. I certainly don't want to jeopardize my privilege to be a stay-at-home mom, so if that means we live in this small house for another 10 years, so be it.

But, at this time, we will press on with what we feel God is leading us to and look to establish roots for our little family.