God hears you

Do you ever feel like your prayers are one-sided conversations? If you're anything like me, then the answer has to be a resounding Y-E-S! You have something on your heart, you take it to God....and then nothing. Or so it would seem like nothing is happening. There is a saying that I have learned to be SO VERY VERY true: "God's 3 answers to your prayers: 1. Yes  2. Not Yet  3. I have something better for you." The journey to get me to the place of writing this on my front porch, out on a country road, proves the saying to be truth for me.
When our family grew to 6, I was sure that we would need to move. And so I prayed for a bigger house. I found houses all over the town that we lived in that would fit us perfectly. The houses were close to friends and the schools and the kids' activities. And I wanted one of them badly...and I prayed A LOT. And nothing happened. Looking back now on that time 9 years ago of asking, begging, wondering if He was listening, I know that my focus/priority was not Him. He is not our genie that sits back and waits to grant all our wishes. But that was kinda how I was treating Him. I wanted what I wanted and when it didn't happen, I just stopped asking altogether. I would pray from time to time, but I wasn't doing what He calls us to be as Christians. And so, his answer was...not yet.
Then things began to change for us in terms of my husband's job. The head football coach left the program and that left a lot of things up in the air for us. We lived in the community and our children attended school there as well and we had come to the conclusion (on our own) that we were gonna see all of our children graduate from that school. And so I began to pray again, regularly. I asked Him to work it out so that we would stay. His answer was...I have something better for you. We found ourselves in a new school district, but still not a new house.
Fast forward a few years and I had finally been brought back to the fold in a sense. It wasn't that I had completely stepped away from God during that time, but my relationship was more of a....hey, God I'll catch ya when I need ya. :( Embarrassingly, I was not the child of God that He desires me to be. When we find ourselves living in that empty space of being wordly when the world is close and Christian when other Christians are close, you are just a puppet of the world. But, He has a way of bringing us back close to Him and restoring us to where we should have always been. And often that happens through the "not yet's." He brought me closer to Him than I have ever felt. Sometimes, pain is used for His good. And I began to pray for things that were to glorify Him. I no longer sought my agenda in my prayers....I asked that His voice be what I heard and my heart open to what He wanted me to do. I had learned that my wants just sent me on a path of chasing rabbit holes. And changing the way I spent time with Him helped to give me excitement and peace when facing the unknown. And even though I had many unknowns of what the future held or how things were gonna work out, I knew that He had already gone ahead of me and worked everything out, which brings me to the last 7 months.
I had finally figured out that when God wanted us to move, that's when it would happen. And if we didn't move, then we were right where He wanted us. So when my husband did not get the position at the school he was at, I was worried. I was disappointed. And to be very honest, I was mad. He deserved it. The decision made no sense to any of us. But, I began to pray for a place for us to move to where He really wanted us. I prayed for our family to be strong to hear where He was leading us....even if it meant no move at all. Instead of being specific in what I thought we would want, my desire was even stronger to do what God wanted and was calling us for.
So, I accompanied my husband on job interviews. Each place I looked for the good and the possibilities for our family. I prayed that God would keep my heart open to what He had planned for us. My husband was just as determined to follow what God was intending for us as a family. It came to a point after 4 months of job searching that I began to ask, "Can't I please know where we will be in the fall? I will go wherever you call us, but can't I just know?" And then the answer came. We had a new adventure laid out in front of us! We were so excited and nervous. It was then that I realized that I should have been asking what would we do for housing too! lol
It came to a point where we had about 3 weeks before my husband needed to be at his new job and we were still living over 2 hours away. Commuting wasn't really an option. :) You would think that I was freaking out that we had no where to live and had committed to a new job. But, I wasn't. I just knew that God had brought us to that point and I KNEW that He wouldn't leave us with no place to live. I knew that He already had a place for us and in His timing, it would all fall into place.
My husband was gonna need to be at the new school beginning June 9th for summer conditioning three days a week. It was May 17th and we had NO prospects or leads on a house....nothin! And on that day, I was so excited. I don't even know how to explain it in a way that could make you understand the magnitude of what was happening in our lives. The next day we would be heading down to the new school to have a meet-n-greet with parents. And I was so filled with a certainty that God was gonna pretty much hand us a house while we were there, that I told people....a lot of people. I was pretty sure that people thought I was completely nuts, but I didn't care. I knew something big would happen and I would get to share the testimony.
People kept asking if we had found a house yet that week leading up to our meeting. My husband and I both would just smile and say, not yet. But we were certain that it would happen just in time. And if one of us began to worry, we just reminded ourselves that God was leading and we were just simply following Him.
So, Sunday May 18th came and we made it to the meeting. I was sure that someone was going to approach us and say that they knew just the perfect house for our family of 9. The meeting began to wrap up and still nothing was said. I thought, "Ok, maybe we're gonna find it when we drive around after the meeting." Then the athletic director announced that we were still looking for a house and I was sure that we would hear about the house. Nope. We came, we met....and now it was time to leave. The VERY LAST family finally said, "Oh, we know a house." Texts were sent, phone calls were made and before I knew it....I was standing in an old farm house. And I knew I was home. I knew that God had placed us there...meeting a family that probably had different plans for their home that they would soon be moving from, but were listening to what God was leading us all to do.
I prayed for what we needed...and what we wanted. And I was totally at peace to receiving what God had planned for me. It was a new experience for me. I no longer yearned for my wants, I yearned (yearn) for what God wants of me. I would say that we really need 4 br, a yard to play in and 2 living spaces so when we need to spread out, we can. I also said we really wanted 2 bathrooms and enough space to host an entire football team so we could open our home to the players. He gave us 5 bedrooms on 4 acres. Its completely undeserving, but that's how things work with God. We don't deserve any of our blessings or redemption or forgiveness. And yet, He gives it all....we just have to be open to let Him lead and seek His ways. God told us not yet countless times and little did we know that He was saying, "I have something better for you."
I could never have imagined that our family could be where we are, it's truly amazing. I know that my prayers are not one-sided conversations. I've learned that sometimes I really need to just stop talking and open my heart so I can hear him. He desires to speak to us in many different ways throughout each day. We need to do better at receiving the other side of the conversation.