Never in a million years would I’ve imagined I’d move to the country.

But we did.

We moved to my grandparents farm that my dad now owned to work on our marriage.

I was just down the way from my dad so I wasn’t completely alone.

This would be a chance for a fresh start…an Isaiah 43 new beginning.

But it would take me a bit to see it as good.

Fall came and it was brutal.

The initial excitement was gone.

I went from busy to what in God’s green earth am I going to do with my time.

I had the house unpacked, ready, and set up before school even started back.

The three boys were in school so it was just me and a toddler…and she was a breeze.

We had our routine…drop boys off at school, she’d play while I cleaned up the house, she’d eat a snack, play a little more, have lunch, take a nap and by the time she woke up it was time to make the drive to pick up the boys from school.

We did eventually find a church we would begin to get involved in.

I’d blog occasionally and every morning I’d sit at my kitchen table to read my Bible.

I started in Genesis and just kept going.

At this point, they were still just words on a page. I didn’t understand half of what I was reading.

They were still just stories. Stories I had learned in Sunday school. Stories I knew by heart.

Eventually, I got a push lawnmower…it was a beast to push.

There was a little over an acre that needed to be mowed. I’d get the front done finally only to find the back was ready to be mowed again.

So while my toddler napped, I’d go out to mow for a bit each day.

I’d also cry, yell, and sit under my juniper tree like Elijah asking God how He could do this to me.

“Just let me die“...I’d tell him.

Silence.

That’s all I would get.

Silence.

Silence when I read.

Silence when I mowed.

God was teaching me to be still so I could truly know Him as God.

I didn’t know what it was to have a relationship with God.

I didn’t know what it looked like to walk with Him outside the four walls.

At this point, I felt like I was in the wilderness and I had made the biggest mistake leaving Egypt.

Like the Israelites, I was ready to run and return back to what was familiar, despite the bondage I was in there.

I did not want the wilderness experience...but it was for my own good.

God would use my wilderness to first break my pride and teach me to obey.

He tested me to see what was in my heart.

He even let me go without, so He could provide…teaching me to trust in Him.

He clothed me.

He kept me.

But more importantly, He corrected me.

There would be lots of lessons to learn in the country.

And in time, I would see the fruit of the changing seasons.