I have been wanting to write this post forever and now that the big news is out, I can excitedly do so. As you may have heard, Jason and I are leaving River City Community Church here in San Antonio and taking over the New Braunfels Campus as an independent church. Pastor Sean and the Elders have decided to move away from the multi-site model there and at our other campus on the Northwest side of town. However...there is much more to this story and I wanted to get it all down. Maybe for those of you who want to follow our journey or just for me to remember it all. Here we go.....
In January of this year, Jason and I were coming up on 8 years of marriage. After 3 pregnancies, 3 children, 7 cars, 1 mortgage, medical bills, gas prices soaring and 10 years in ministry...we were exhausted. It felt like in a lot of ways I had lost control of everything around me. That seemed to be the word of month for me. Control. Not an easy thing for me to let go of. At that point I began to get serious about my time with God every day. I woke up every morning to pray, read my bible and read one book that would challenge me. It was hard, enlightening, fruitful, challenging and amazing all at the same time. The previous 2 years I had prayed for a "New Year Word" that my friend Kelly had done on her blog. I knew without a doubt that mine was Change in 2012. I was terrified and almost never published it and wanted to deny it. I don't like change and I didn't want to accept that God may ask me to do something hard. At that same time, Jason had prayed and felt the Lord had led him to the word faith. My response was more fear than faith. "Oh great, Jason. That's just great." We all have our weak spots. ;-)
Over the next few months I continued to pray and work through my control issues. I picked up "The Power of A Praying Wife" again and pressed in to pray for my husband and allowed God to change me to be the wife He could only make me be. I'll say this again and again. This is was not EASY for me. That seems to shock a lot of people when I tell them this, but I realized that my control over situations was ultimately fear of God not coming through for me AND a lack of faith that He is control. I was hit in the face over and over again with the idea that I was not truly surrendered to what Jesus could do. In my marriage, in my children, in my circumstances, in my finances and in my life. I was literally gripped to each of these areas. Little by little I began to see how my letting go was allowing Jesus to do miraculous things. He was refining and changing me.
And....He was really speaking to Jason's heart and changing Him. Jason was getting serious about some areas in his life as well. In May He shared with me that he felt like his time at River City was coming to an end. My immediate response was not really all that faith-filled. I humbly will admit to you that I was not ready to accept this. We love our church, we love Sean & Lauri, we love our friends there and our roles. My kids have grown up there! It seemed so weird to think that after spending 9/10 years there, we would be contemplating moving on. However, I knew that this was an area that God was going to ask me to trust Him and Jason's leading.
At that point, I just began to pray. I knew somehow that Jason was right. I recently found a journal entry from June that says, "Lord, I have this feeling you are moving us on from RCCC." I will embarrassingly tell you that I cried many ugly tears during this process. My poor husband. He has many treasures in Heaven.
The next 2 months were the craziest months ever. More on that tomorrow.....
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