Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” (NIV)

Isn’t it funny how we KNOW that God’s plan for us is greater than our own, yet we still try to fit him into our realm of human thinking and understanding?  We want him to fulfill our own desires but to somehow give us the clarity that the decision is right before we make it.  We want a clear sign from God that the next step is the right one even if all of our being is leading us that way.

We crave his guidance yet we want him to work within our standards, our bubble, our choices, our limited understanding, our timeline and our limitations.  However, the most powerful stories of God’s work that we hear are so because he does things more awesome than we can fathom.  He cures the incurable, brings wealth to the homeless, brings people together from opposite ends of the Earth, provides where there is hopelessness and uses tragedy to create opportunities to further his kingdom-and we STILL want him to work within our box.

After I had our son Adler I immediately questioned my decision about returning to my demanding full time job. I thought that as the weeks went on it would get easier and I wouldn’t feel overwhelmed about the prospect of being good at my job, at being a Mom, at being a wife and at being a Christ follower. I have always been so proud of my ability to “do it all” and I finally knew it wasn’t really possible- something had to give. Fortunately, my husband’s career as a functional medicine doctor has, by the grace of God, taken off. He is blessed with so many opportunities to share natural ways- God’s ways- of restoring health for his patients. The downside is he has NO time to do anything else so on top of being a new Mom I also have much greater responsibility in keeping our household running. So- what’s the issue- why didn’t I just quit?

Well, for two reasons.  First- my pride.  I enjoy having the opportunity to mentor and teach people.  I like being in charge but also empowering others and my job was a great fit for me.  My boss has confidence in my leadership abilities and decision making skills and empowers me with decision making responsibility for our company.  These things bring me great satisfaction and I was terrified about “losing myself” and becoming a stay at home Mom.  I’m not really the super nurturing type and doing nothing but caring for a house and babies all day is not my idea of fulfilling.

Second- my paycheck.  After almost 6years with my company I had moved into a position that was not only personally fulfilling, but also quite lucrative. I feel so very blessed that my job (with God’s blessing) comfortably provided for us throughout Wiggy’s medical school and residency.  Giving up my earning potential and hard work climbing the ladder was a difficult pill to swallow.   Wiggy’s career is doing well but he is still in the early years of practice and we like to save rather to spend.  What if our bank account balance started going DOWN rather than UP?

On January 19th I gave birth to my beautiful son- and everything changed.  I started to question all of this- what was the best decision for our family?  How would I know it was right?  What about all of the uncertainty with Obamacare and oh yeah- did I mention we were still paying two mortgages while “patiently” waiting for our old house to sell?  One day I figured it out- or so I thought.  If God wanted me to quit working full time then he would clearly give me a great sign-he would sell our house!  I had 12 weeks of maternity leave before returning to work full time and that would be the clear sign I needed to make the decision!  sold house=quit job, house on the market= stay at job

The weeks wore on- I became more and more stressed about the prospect of returning.  God was working on my heart even when I tried to ignore him.  My human reasoning/sin- pride in my position and my paycheck- were fading.  I started to see that the need for me to surrender all of that for my family was great.  Additionally, there were new opportunities for fulfillment AND pursuing my passion at the same time. Wiggy’s patients started asking about nutrition counseling and he started referring them to me.  Interest in my personal training services started to increase.  Opportunities outside of his normal practice continued to develop for Wiggy.  My call to serve in new ministries became stronger.

And then, one Sunday in church, my dear friend and mentor, Charlie Barham, presented a sermon on the question “How do I know God’s Will for my life?”  I honestly cannot even tell you exactly what Charlie preached about that day- but I know that I cried during most of it because it spoke so clearly to my heart- and I left there knowing that God wanted me to quit my job.

I spent the next three days stressing over how and when to do it.  I have a GREAT relationship with an incredible boss and did not want to disappoint him.  At the same time I did not want to drag out the inevitable or leave him with a sticky situation at the end of my maternity leave.  So, I did it- that Wednesday night I told him I would not be returning.  I immediately felt relief to have it over with- but also lots of fear about what the future would bring- and of course we still had 2 mortgages- I had not yet received that REAL sign from God even though everything else was pointing me in that direction- had I messed up?  The uncertainty was overwhelming!

But our God is an awesome God- and when we listen to him he shows us His way- and it’s way better than ours.  The VERY next day around 3:30 PM I received a phone call from our realtor letting me know that we were about to receive an offer on our house.  By 9pm the following evening we were under contract.  I was in awe- I felt like God gave me a pat on the back and a slap in the face at the same time.  You see- he showed me that by trusting in him and doing things according to His plan that he would take care of all the rest.  I had to take that blind step of faith first rather than trying to force God to work within my plan.

What a powerful moment on my journey through faith.  Granted the house has not yet closed and will not for 2 more months, but I still feel that it is so important to share this story- God hears us and he is working for us all the time.  He is behind the scenes and he has our backs- we just have to learn to trust him and move when he leads us even when it’s dark or foggy.  This situation has given me great reassurance in the fact that I know he is lighting my path and I know that I have made a Godly decision in choosing to leave my job.  My family, my faith journey and my heart will all reap the rewards.