{Five Minute Friday Link-up :: Accept ::}

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it……..”
 
Famous opening lines to Mission Impossible run through my mind as I recall the beginning of the newest phase in my husband’s and my ministry. Our move away from our grown children and grandchildren and parents in the Midwest came as an unexpected turn in our 30+ year sojourn with the Lord. I got the head’s up before my hubby did, though, in a most peculiar way.
 
We had a house guest staying with us who was a friend of one of our sons. She would have episodes where dizziness and fainting would come upon her and she knew she needed to lie down and concentrate so that she wouldn’t fade out. She asked me to talk to her until the episode passed. Just talk. Well, I’m used to asking leading questions and keeping quiet during the answers, which wasn’t a help to this young lady. So, I began a running monologue of my life and our ministry.
 
It’s odd when you have to keep talking about yourself. It begins to sound like you’re thinking out loud. She got a complete history lesson on how I met my husband, where we’ve lived, how the modular house that we were living in at the time was built, and so on. Then she asked me a question, “So, is this your forever home?” You see, we had moved 10 times before we moved into that house. But we always told the Lord that we would go where ever He called us as long as he made it clear to us. The young lady’s eyes grew big and she needed to know if God would call us to move from this home, our forever home, would we actually go?

​I had to think before I answered her. I need to be honest with myself and with God.
Would I move if God called us? I knew what I had to say.
“Yes, If the Lord called us to another place, we would move.”
The room was still, except for the sense I had that someone had leaned over my right shoulder and asked, “Really?’
Though I already knew what I would find, I turned to see who said that. No one was there.
But, I understood that God had heard everything I had said.
 
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My time is up, but the story has just begun. This odyssey of transition began in May of 2012. Although it would take up much space to write out the entire scenario, this improbable move away from our family and home towns to a “foreign land” on the East Coast (c’mon, you know that ANYTHING different than how you grew up is foreign) was designated by God, alone. And, I will testify that He has proven Himself to us at every turn reminding us that we are indeed following His call.
 
When I ‘heard’ that voice ask me ‘Really?’ I knew that God was speaking to me. He was tapping me on the shoulder and testing my sincerity to the promise David and I had said we would keep.
 
Our move almost 5 years ago has been the most difficult, emotionally draining, and ultimately rewarding relocation we have ever made. In accepting our mission we have agreed to receive whatever responsibilities have been designated by our Good God. If you have sensed that God is tapping you on the shoulder for a mission improbable, know that you don’t go it alone. He has promised to be Emmanuel – God with us.
 
1 Thessalonians 5:24 says, “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.” 

Five Minute Friday Link-up  is an encouraging group of writers who write for five minutes on the word of the week and share it in the link-up.

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