Faith & Freedom Lifestyle

For those of you following our story, I’m sure you’ve wondered what we’ve been up to lately! It’s been six months since our last blog. Mainly because we’ve been busy doing life, and because we are in a period of waiting. For me, this period hasn’t been easy. Being the planner and preparer that I am, the stillness has brought me to some emotional places. I’ve had moments of regret, confusion and mostly worry. I tend to do better when I have something to look forward to. I’ve never been able to enjoy the stillness of the unknown. Those who can, have a gift. My husband is one of them. He is very content where we are in our journey. I envy that. No wonder God has branded the verse “be still and know…” on my heart. I can tell you countless stories of Him being faithful to me the very moment I let go of trying to be in control. He’s still working on me. Slowly, the picture is being painted. Instead of enjoying watching the artist work, I’m trying to rush it. Prior to now, it seemed that we were going nowhere, fast. However, we are right where we are supposed to be. Six months seems like a long time to wait on answers but, looking back, there’s a lot that has actually taken place. Each one, a brush stroke in this beautiful work of art.

When we first sold our house and moved in to the RV, we had no plans to start looking for land right away. We wanted to enjoy being financially free for a bit before jumping right back into some type of payment. Plus, the cost of EVERYTHING was ridiculously high, so the wait didn’t hurt our feelings. Our initial plan was to find some land, park the RV there, build a building for storage and functionality, then eventually a barndominium-style home. The goal was to do this in steps, paying off each major phase at a time. As smart and frugal as it seemed, it isn’t quite working out that way. But who is painting this picture? Us, or God?

Let’s rewind to a few months ago…

In March, I left my full-time job at Caromont for a PRN position at Atrium Health in Lincolnton. I had been at Caromont for 14 years. It was a huge leap of faith. There are several reasons why we believed this would be a great change, but one reason is that we knew we eventually wanted to live in Lincoln County. This was my foot in the door, at a great hospital. Going from full-time to PRN wasn’t exactly part of our financial plan…but God. We could never have afforded this change in any other circumstance. I had some much needed freedoms on my days off that my soul had been longing for. I was able to spend more time with my kids and I had time to discover parts of myself again. It’s a respite I was given, that I didn’t know I needed. I’m so grateful for that sabbatical, if you will. I’m now ready for, and looking forward to, the opportunities to grow in my profession with Atrium.

This past Summer also brought some very much desired opportunities for travel for our family. Again, these trips wouldn’t have happened if our circumstances were any different. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that “we sold our home and most of our things so we could travel”, but I will acknowledge the fact that some of these things became possibilities because of the decisions we made. There’s no time like the present to create memories. We aren’t promised tomorrow, so we made the decision to use some of our savings to do that. Again, this wasn’t part of our financial goal. A little bit of travel, yes, but do we regret the things our kids were able to see and experience, absolutely not.

Josh also had an incredible work opportunity to go to Austria, so we decided to extend the trip and do some traveling around Europe.

Fast forward to present day…

In our journey looking for land in Lincoln County, God has been quite funny. Good things come to those who wait, but I believe that “good thing” came because God needed to distract us and keep us busy…for the right property to come available. We have been under contract on THREE DIFFERENT PROPERTIES since April. Ugh! The first property didn’t work out due to the percolation test failing. The second property didn’t work out because the seller was unwilling to work with us at first. We needed to extend the contract because Lincoln County was extremely behind in getting perc tests completed. The seller didn’t want to work with us until we decided to back out. At that point we had a bad feeling about moving forward, so we made the choice to terminate. Back to square one, once again.

Currently, and awestruck, we are under contract on the most beautiful piece of property, in the original location we had hoped for, and close to the school of our choice for our boys. The details of this particular story is being saved for the next blog post. How we stumbled upon this land is amazing, deserves the spotlight and is another testament to how God’s way is always better.

Some of our prayers are starting to be answered, but in His timing. I have reason to not fear the future when the paintbrush is in His hands.

“Building the Digh home 2.0” just may be under way!

Stay tuned…