One day almost a year ago, Johnnie told me he wants to move back to Kansas. I was brokenhearted! I love Washington, our friends, our church, my sister and brother in law are here, I love the climate -- everything about living here! I actually cried several times in private over this announcement. I even considered separating from Johnnie and telling him to go ahead and move back to Kansas, but I am staying here. But I knew that wasn't right and he would never do it so instead I began to pray that God would change his heart.
By last Fall, I had gone from devastation to resignation about the move. I came to understand through my prayer time that this is Johnnie's journey and the desire of his heart to go back to his "home". He is amenable to looking at other areas in Kansas besides Wichita as long as we are reasonably close to the family. So while we are there visiting family, we actually start looking at houses and trying to figure out what we want and where we want to be. We almost bought a place in Lyndon but then in the end, it needed so much foundation work that we stepped away.
At that point, we let the whole idea just simmer over the winter months and decided to make a trip in Spring to look again. We continued perusing the listings on the internet and tried to narrow down more of what we want and reconcile our different desires: Johnnie wants acreage in the country and doesn't care much about the house, I want to have a nice house close to the city for services and doctors with a small enough property we are not slaves to maintaining it.
I continued to pray for the right place at the right time and the Lord's leading in both our hearts. As I prayed, over and over my thoughts are drawn back to the Lord's words to his disciples "do you trust me?" Do I trust Him? Whew! While I was praying for the Lord to change Johnnie's heart, he was actually changing mine.
In April we went house hunting. We found our house in one week of looking and it is truly the house of our dreams. We always wanted to live on a lake -- had looked in Arkansas at Beaver Lake many times but couldn't make it work financially -- so when we looked at this house, we both knew it was perfect. Johnnie loves the country setting with lots of wildlife and timber, and of course the lake with fishing at our doorstep. I like the fact that it is 20 min. to Topeka and 30 min. to Lawrence, so I am close to services and doctors and cultural activities.
Am I surprised that the Lord gave us this house of our dreams? No, not really. When we walk trusting him daily, he gives us the desire of our hearts. Now we are both excited about the move and while it is hard to leave WA and all the roots we have here, it is not as hard knowing that we have a new chapter at the Lake House with all the blessings that brings!
The next chapter will bring lots of changes for us and challenges as well which may make us doubt or even regret the move at times. But I will remind myself, do I trust Him? He has brought us this far, and He will take us the rest of the way. And I know with confidence, He has many more blessings in store for us.
