Saturday, February 3, 2018
The girls and I finally returned to society yesterday. They both seemed to be recovered from this flu bug (except Chloe's pesky cough). I was so happy to be back with my students. We did some Groundhog Day activities and did some activities about shadows. We went outside and they traced another student's shadow. It was 11 degrees outside so we had to do it quickly, but they had so much fun and the weirdness of my brain made another connection to our current situation.
I have struggled with posting this information. I am still struggling as I write each of these words. I do not have ill will to anyone involved. This is not to make others look bad, it's just the current situation in our lives. One year ago today my husband accepted the new role as the high school principal for the high school that would be starting this school year. The decision was madness. We didn't understand why God was asking him to commit this financial and professional suicide, but He was and so we obeyed. We had to make so many changes and adjustments in our life. Last April it came to our attention that to be a principal at the school you had to be a member of the church connected with the school. As much as we respect the people of that particular church we knew that that was a deal breaker for us. We would not be leaving our church.
Side story: We moved to Chicago 6 years ago this summer to plant a church. We left everything we loved and headed to Chicago. We struggled and we were in a bad place (no literally our apartment was BAD). We had no support system and it really is a miracle that we made it out of that apartment as a family. Three years ago in January my husband met for coffee with a church planter that he had met through Twitter. The Lord was already revealing to us that we needed to jump in with another church plant. It was heartbreaking for us and felt like we had failed in God's plan. So Jeremy meets with a man named Eric who has a church plant on the other side of the city. Jeremy comes home from that meeting and I remember him saying that if we lived closer to their church he could see us jumping in with their ministry. We at the time had been house hunting in our neighborhood. We had actually put an offer on a foreclosed house nearby. The bank was dragging their feet about accepting any offers so we decided to keep looking at other houses. One Saturday we looked at a bunch of houses all disappointing. There was one house left in the stack of flyers but somehow when this house came up it was because we had zoomed too far out on the house search website. With much reluctance, we drove the almost 40 minutes to Portage Park to look at a house. Well, it happened to be the house we are living in. We moved in this house in March and we met a few times in our home with our core of people, but we knew it was time to join another plant. We had been in contact with several church planters in our area. We then discovered that the church Pastor Eric was at was 2 miles from our new house. God had led us to this house because He was leading us to our church. It did not take long (even for this socially anxious introvert) for the people of that church to become our family. They helped us heal, they love us, they make us better for the Kingdom.
Okay. Back to the current situation. In April Jeremy made it clear that we would not leave our church. They said okay and he was hired as the high school principal. The last week of June he gets a call that the leadership of the school had changed and asked if Jeremy would take on the responsibility of leading both schools. Well, from a previous post you know that it has been a rough ride, but my husband continued to lead the school, seeking God's wisdom, and making changes that would better the students and the school. In November he was told that it is in the church constitution that the principal has to be a member of the church. If he wanted to return as principal next year we would have to be members of the partnering church. They would not be changing their constitution. PUNCH IN THE GUT! So after some prayer and counsel we knew that leaving our church was not an option so Jeremy told them he would not be returning. They did come back and say that they could try to change the constitution but they wouldn't be meeting until March and it was not going to be an easy task and it may not even pass. So, yesterday the staff and families were notified that the search for a new principal would be starting. Our hearts are broken. You cannot imagine the number of tears that have been shed since the end of November. We do not know why God asked us to drastically alter our entire lives for such a short chapter in our life story.
So the connection to Groundhog Day? Every year the groundhog comes out of his den. Every year on the same day the same story. He comes out, he sees his shadow or doesn't see his shadow. The same thing every year. I feel like that has been our story. Every year, the same time of year, we are waiting for God to reveal what His next plan is for our life. We believed that this part of our story was going to take up many chapters in our book. We saw ourselves here for many years, so it is not easy finding myself in this familiar waiting room of life. We have to believe that God has great plans for whatever is next, but it is hard to process under this crushing weight of disappointment. I took some pictures yesterday of my kids drawing their shadows. As I looked through the pictures last night I noticed that in one of the pictures one of the kids in making a peace sign with his hand. It was my reminder that even when something is blocking the light and is making our path covered in shadows God is still giving peace. He is asking me to look past the darkness and trust in His plan, His faithful, His steadfast love.
A new Culver's opened up close to our house this week. We decided we needed some comfort food :)
I have struggled with posting this information. I am still struggling as I write each of these words. I do not have ill will to anyone involved. This is not to make others look bad, it's just the current situation in our lives. One year ago today my husband accepted the new role as the high school principal for the high school that would be starting this school year. The decision was madness. We didn't understand why God was asking him to commit this financial and professional suicide, but He was and so we obeyed. We had to make so many changes and adjustments in our life. Last April it came to our attention that to be a principal at the school you had to be a member of the church connected with the school. As much as we respect the people of that particular church we knew that that was a deal breaker for us. We would not be leaving our church.
Side story: We moved to Chicago 6 years ago this summer to plant a church. We left everything we loved and headed to Chicago. We struggled and we were in a bad place (no literally our apartment was BAD). We had no support system and it really is a miracle that we made it out of that apartment as a family. Three years ago in January my husband met for coffee with a church planter that he had met through Twitter. The Lord was already revealing to us that we needed to jump in with another church plant. It was heartbreaking for us and felt like we had failed in God's plan. So Jeremy meets with a man named Eric who has a church plant on the other side of the city. Jeremy comes home from that meeting and I remember him saying that if we lived closer to their church he could see us jumping in with their ministry. We at the time had been house hunting in our neighborhood. We had actually put an offer on a foreclosed house nearby. The bank was dragging their feet about accepting any offers so we decided to keep looking at other houses. One Saturday we looked at a bunch of houses all disappointing. There was one house left in the stack of flyers but somehow when this house came up it was because we had zoomed too far out on the house search website. With much reluctance, we drove the almost 40 minutes to Portage Park to look at a house. Well, it happened to be the house we are living in. We moved in this house in March and we met a few times in our home with our core of people, but we knew it was time to join another plant. We had been in contact with several church planters in our area. We then discovered that the church Pastor Eric was at was 2 miles from our new house. God had led us to this house because He was leading us to our church. It did not take long (even for this socially anxious introvert) for the people of that church to become our family. They helped us heal, they love us, they make us better for the Kingdom.
Okay. Back to the current situation. In April Jeremy made it clear that we would not leave our church. They said okay and he was hired as the high school principal. The last week of June he gets a call that the leadership of the school had changed and asked if Jeremy would take on the responsibility of leading both schools. Well, from a previous post you know that it has been a rough ride, but my husband continued to lead the school, seeking God's wisdom, and making changes that would better the students and the school. In November he was told that it is in the church constitution that the principal has to be a member of the church. If he wanted to return as principal next year we would have to be members of the partnering church. They would not be changing their constitution. PUNCH IN THE GUT! So after some prayer and counsel we knew that leaving our church was not an option so Jeremy told them he would not be returning. They did come back and say that they could try to change the constitution but they wouldn't be meeting until March and it was not going to be an easy task and it may not even pass. So, yesterday the staff and families were notified that the search for a new principal would be starting. Our hearts are broken. You cannot imagine the number of tears that have been shed since the end of November. We do not know why God asked us to drastically alter our entire lives for such a short chapter in our life story.
So the connection to Groundhog Day? Every year the groundhog comes out of his den. Every year on the same day the same story. He comes out, he sees his shadow or doesn't see his shadow. The same thing every year. I feel like that has been our story. Every year, the same time of year, we are waiting for God to reveal what His next plan is for our life. We believed that this part of our story was going to take up many chapters in our book. We saw ourselves here for many years, so it is not easy finding myself in this familiar waiting room of life. We have to believe that God has great plans for whatever is next, but it is hard to process under this crushing weight of disappointment. I took some pictures yesterday of my kids drawing their shadows. As I looked through the pictures last night I noticed that in one of the pictures one of the kids in making a peace sign with his hand. It was my reminder that even when something is blocking the light and is making our path covered in shadows God is still giving peace. He is asking me to look past the darkness and trust in His plan, His faithful, His steadfast love.
A new Culver's opened up close to our house this week. We decided we needed some comfort food :)
 |
| The struggle of getting a picture of Samuel these days. This only took 20 tries :) |
Comments
Post a Comment