On The Freedom of Obedience

The last day of 2013 was kind of an abrupt one for me. The day itself came in slowly and beautifully, like most of my family's days, (until, of course, we encounter a toddler screaming on the floor and an exacerbated sigh of reviewing the to-do list and the clock) and we went along doing our thing - but I wasn't actually aware that the day it was, was the last day of 2013. Not until somewhere in the afternoon when a friend asked us what our plans were, for new year's eve... for that night. It was like someone had turned the lights on in the middle of a wedding reception and there we were, somehow at the end of it, ready to go home, although not quite finished dancing. Of course, I knew the year was coming to an end sometime soon but in the flurry of Christmas and family and preparing for a big event in our work year, I hadn't actually taken the time that most do to reflect and discuss and close the chapter that was last year.

So there I was, with just hours to look back and the busy-ness still in full swing, wondering what kind of year 2013 would be called for us. And the word I came on was blessed. 2013 was blessed. It was a blessed year.

It was a hard year, too. Blessed doesn't necessarily mean easy. And that night as John and I broke bread and shared a sip of wine to ring out the old year and draw in the new, we prayed a prayer of thanks for what the year was: for everything the Lord gave us, and for everything He took away.

Depending on how long you've been following me here (and yes, I know I've been silent over the last few months), you might remember that 2013 was the year we suffered an early pregnancy loss. We also waved goodbye to a house downpayment as we pursued a debt challenge. We moved... twice. But it was also the year that I learned how good God is, and how I know that I know that, even in the middle of a miscarriage. And how we experienced what it feels like to own a vehicle, instead of leasing one. (It's great, by the way, owning a vehicle.) We learned that our marriage can hold up to some straight-up trials as we stand back to back to conquer. We learned that God uses houses and cities as stepping stones, and that although He fosters community in our lives over the course of months and years, He brings it to our hearts in minutes, too. I began baking bread. We learned that we can dream big... big, big. And to top it all off, we got pregnant once again :)

But this post wasn't intended to be a reflection of 2013: this post is to let you know about the freedom that comes with obedience. 2013 was blessed and in a refining, stone-against-stone way because we were called to obeying God in the unique things He has been calling our family to do (or be, or say, or don't do, or give, or give up, or whatever it is in that moment).

Here's the story. Sort of.

At the beginning of 2013, John and I were lined up to buy our friend's house. I'm talking, signed offer and deciding on a closing date kind of lined up. The house was literally perfect for what we needed: 3 bedrooms, an attached office with big ol' gorgeous windows, a play nook (a nook, I tell you), an Ikea'd kitchen, an old staircase beside an exposed brick wall, a fenced backyard, on a cutesy street within walking distance of coffee shops in a safe part of a lovely city. And we had the down payment. And we had the plan. And then we got this feeling: This feeling that we were about to take a good-looking step in the exact wrong direction.

And somewhere in our pursuit of what this feeling was all about, we learned about a new style of financial management. In the period of just a few days, it was like our heads had been thrown into a martini shaker and poured on the rocks. Somehow, everything shifted; all financial priorities were given a whopping of newness and we were sure that we had to erase our debt (consumer and otherwise) before we got into a mortgage. We were (we are) confident that God was straight up telling us to use our 10% house downpayment to fix what we suddenly saw, as though with a new pair of eyes, as mistakes in financial management.

We made the hard call, we ended the offer, and we started the gruelling journey of getting out of debt.

Now, I don't want to lecture you on your financial management situation because it is nothing other than information between you and your accounts and God, and what God tells John & I to do is not necessarily what God tells you or your family to do. There are some really great financial leaders I'm happy to refer you to, but this sister ain't one of them. We were just doing what God was telling us to do, at this one point of time in our lives.

So we did. We obeyed and it was painful. We dropped a dress size in our debt, we kept renting, and we kept pursuing His voice.

And then, just a few short months down the road, an opportunity came up to house-share: splitting many living costs in half, gaining more work space for our business, and moving toward what we saw as a good opportunity for community. We felt like God was in it hard, so we did it. We moved cities and we house-shared, and I'm telling you right now, the situation crumbled as quickly as it came together.

Our little family of three (and soon to be four) had moved away from everything we knew to a new little town that seemed to offer small potatoes (you'll get it if you live here) in comparison with what we had, or what we could have had, if we had just stayed put. Or had bought that house. Or had kept our debt. We sat on nothing, in nothing, for nothing, and we were feeling stuck in the middle of a dark night with no moon. More specifically, we were sitting in the middle of a 2600 square foot house in the middle of a suburb with no money.

Why had we felt that God was calling us to something that was such a clear cut disaster of a situation?

...Twice?

And as the little whispers come and go when you listen for the voice of God, He began to move like the wind. Dreams began to arise about adventures bigger than we had thought possible (or probable... or smart). I baked a loaf of foccacia bread, and then I couldn't stop. We spent more time connecting in our new church. We decided to stay in the little town, to move into a rental apartment smaller and less affordable than our last, a further distance from our clients than we really should be, but with this community that we just couldn't and can't seem to peel ourselves away from even for a second and with a passion for continuing to obey.

Today, just today, another call for obedience came and we had to follow it because at this point, there's no sense in turning back. We've come this far and He has provided in abundance - and that doesn't always (or even usually... or even ever) mean cheques flying through our windows like paper airplanes -  I won't share the details until our dreams start to seem to come together with even some semblance of sanity, but here we were, called to obey once again.

Each time God pursues us it feels as though we have less and less "stuff" to pour out, as though He is wringing us in His hands like a dirty towel to clean us from everything that we don't really need and yet again filling us to the point of overflow with love and peace and patience, and oh mama you should see the kind of man my husband is turning into and the peace I'm learning to embrace.

God has called us to obedience beyond what I thought we could handle, and every time I pray "please, give us/him/me wisdom", we get it.

There is freedom in obedience because when God calls you to do something, His plans are great for those who listen. What we have is far less and yet far more than what I could have ever been comfortable with in January of 2013.

2013 was blessed because there is freedom in obedience. We have lived the way we feel we have been asked to, and life is more fun because of it. We make-do with less because of it. We are more creative because of it. I bake bread because of it.

The freedom I realized that God gives was like learning to use speakerphone for the first time: we're hands free, and He still provides. When we slip up, when we seek our ideas and our notions first, He's there to bring us back and steer us right again.

He opens doors for community - He releases us of fear - He brings us closer as a family, as a husband and wife; He gives us freedom from ourselves when we just obey.