For Sale

In January of 2011, right around Chris' birthday, I started being unable to sleep. Anybody who has ever experienced this knows that one night without sleep is bad enough. I had seven. Seven straight nights of not more than an hour at a time of sleep. I tried all the usual remedies: no caffeine, allergy medication, benadryl, melatonin, etc. Nothing worked. I've experienced this kind of sleeplessness before, but it was in the middle of a crisis. This was not.

Finally, on the seventh night, around 2 am, I went out onto the couch and just laid down. Sleep did not come to me, but a thought did. I remembered in the book of Samuel how God had come to the boy Samuel in the middle of the night, and he mistaken his interrupted sleep for his mentor Eli calling him. It was only after several mistaken attempts to answer Eli that his mentor realized that Samuel was probably hearing from God, and told him to say, "Speak, for your servant is listening."

So I quieted my heart and mind as best I could and said (out loud), "God...I'm here if you want something."

And God answered, "Move to Texas."

I was a little startled by this, but had the presence of mind to answer, "Where?"

And God answered, "San Antonio."

And I asked, "Why?"

And God said, "There is an autism research center there."

Both of my boys, as most of you know, were diagnosed with autism when they reached the age of two. Many of my experiences here with my boys have been wonderful. My church, their preschool, our friends and family have all been so good, kind, loving, and understanding of our boys.

But one thing that has grown in my mind more and more, though, is how limited the resources here are. It has taken what feels like an eternity to get them even the most basic of services. It's not that the providers around here don't want to help our boys...there just aren't enough of them for the number of children with special needs who live here.

So the next morning, I Googled "Autism center San Antonio." And a funny thing happened...there are a lot of them. Some in San Antonio, some close to San Antonio, but they are there.

So I went into our bathroom where Chris was getting ready for the day and nonchalantly informed him that God had told me that we were to move to Texas. I will leave it to your imagination as to how Chris responded when I was the one to tell him that.

The next night, I inquired of the Lord, "When are we supposed to go?" And He answered, "After the baby is born."

This was in January. I was NOT pregnant.

But in April I found out that I was. And in December, after a difficult pregnancy and delivery, our beautiful baby boy was born.

Two days after God's initially speaking to me, we went to church, and wouldn't you know it, the topic for our pastor's sermon was "What to do when God speaks to you." Not even joking. It was based on the scripture in Habakkuk where God instructs Habakkuk to write down his revelation. So that night, I wrote down exactly what God said to me, and have gone back to what I wrote many times over the past 14 months.

The year between God talking to me and Luke being born was not an easy one in the sense of me just being willing to do what He was asking of me. I wrestled with God many, many, many times. I felt that we were too invested in our church, and they were too invested in us. I love my job, and didn't see how I could possibly leave it. I didn't want to uproot my kids into the unknown. I didn't know how it would be financially possible for us to sell our house and to move with all the unknowns. We didn't have jobs down there, or even leads on jobs. I don't know the school systems. And I didn't know WHICH autism center we were supposed to go to.

But God has been patient with me, and about six weeks after the baby was born, we were directed to a realtor, and we told him our story. He walked us through what we would need to do in order to sell our house (which is WAY under water), and so we got to work. It seems that that was all it took to get the ball rolling, because after that I started looking into getting teaching credentials for the state of Texas, talking with my administrator and other friends, and looking more in depth at the autism centers.

During the last few weeks we have told our church, much of our close family and friends, and a few colleagues at school what God spoke to me over a year ago. Chris' dad is flying us down to San Antonio to visit the autism centers in the area. We have gone through the arduous process of getting our house ready to sell, and we now have a sign in our yard and will officially put it on the market tomorrow morning. We still have no jobs and no real way of moving down there...but prepare to move down there we will do nonetheless. Chris put his letter of resignation into our church, and we will be done in an official capacity in June. In a last ditch effort to find our boys help here, I applied for them to come to my school because we have an autism program at my school (a very rare thing)...and they were denied because we live out of district. Another door to stay here closed.

So there we are. We know our overall end, and we know why we're going. We know what we are supposed to do TODAY, but that's about it. We hope that you will pray for us as we very much walk in faith that God has called us into His plan...and we already know that His plans are always far better than ours. We are grateful for His love for us and for our boys, and are excited to see how God will equip them for the calling He has placed on there lives in our moving down to a place where they can receive the help that they need. I would be lying if I said I wanted to leave...but I very much want to be in God's will...His good, pleasing, and perfect will.