"... Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:20
Five years ago life looked a lot different. Matt, Maximo and myself were living with my parents in a great big house out in Inver Grove Heights. We really enjoyed living with them and when they began talking about selling the great big house and moving in to the city, we all decided that we should all find a house together. Fox 9 news even did a story on us, a news guys and camera man interviewed us and followed us around on one of the showings we went to. I was bummed when I went to look it up, I wanted to share the clip on here, but it is no longer available to view. They did have a short article that you can see here if you want.
Everyone sort of thought that we were nuts. Why would we want to live that close to our family? It just worked for us.
My mom spent many nights staying up late looking on-line at different houses and she came across a HUGE mansion for sale in the Crocus Hill neighborhood in St. Paul. We went and saw it. It was amazing. It had been transformed into a group home so it was perfectly split down the middle. Aside from the fact that the power didn't work on the upper level and it was super spooky and super institutional looking with bright neon EXIT signs and eerie hallways and hidden stair cases, the house was AMAZING. It had like nine bedrooms, two kitchens, at least four bathrooms, etc. etc. etc. It needed a ton of work and was double what our budget was for a house, but we began truly believing that if God wanted us to have the house, that it could happen. My mom and I began saying "we just need to have faith like a mustard seed yellow mansion.
When we scheduled a showing for the house we brought our whole crew: my best friend, my dad's best friend (Warren, Matt's dad), Matt's mom, and a few other friends with re-modeling experience. They all thought we were nuts. The house needed a lot of work, but we saw the bigger picture: that if God wanted us here, he'd make it work. We envisioned where our rooms were going to be, what it would look like when we took down a few walls, how we would build a garage in the back and make ministry retreat rooms above it, how we would finish the attic and hold gatherings up there. It was going to be so cool.
Needless to say, it never worked out. The house was sold to someone else and what we all got from it was: "well? It was fun to dream!" A few months later I happened to drive by and they were gutting the house and fixing it up. The curb was full of old furniture and things from inside the house just waiting to be gathered up by the garbage collectors. And yes I pulled over and crammed a chair and old mirror in my trunk. Wanna see it? Here's a link I found: 513 Portland Ave.
God knew what the future held, and that it wouldn't have worked out. That Dad was going to die just six months later and that life was about to drastically change.
It's been a while since I have really had huge dreams about huge things happening. After my dad died I think I stopped hoping and dreaming for big huge out-of-the-box miracles. I wanted to protect my heart, so I started having low expectations so that no matter what happened I wouldn't get hurt if things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to.
My life is full of miracles. Miracles I don't even recognize.
I want to have my eyes open to them again. I don't want to be surprised when they take place anymore. I want to expect the best. I want to dream big again.
My dreams scare me these days. Not in a bad way, in a good way. And the best part about it, is that when I talk about them with my husband, he isn't scared at all.
I want to have faith like a yellow mustard seed. And I'm tellin' those mountains to move.
When we scheduled a showing for the house we brought our whole crew: my best friend, my dad's best friend (Warren, Matt's dad), Matt's mom, and a few other friends with re-modeling experience. They all thought we were nuts. The house needed a lot of work, but we saw the bigger picture: that if God wanted us here, he'd make it work. We envisioned where our rooms were going to be, what it would look like when we took down a few walls, how we would build a garage in the back and make ministry retreat rooms above it, how we would finish the attic and hold gatherings up there. It was going to be so cool.
Needless to say, it never worked out. The house was sold to someone else and what we all got from it was: "well? It was fun to dream!" A few months later I happened to drive by and they were gutting the house and fixing it up. The curb was full of old furniture and things from inside the house just waiting to be gathered up by the garbage collectors. And yes I pulled over and crammed a chair and old mirror in my trunk. Wanna see it? Here's a link I found: 513 Portland Ave.
God knew what the future held, and that it wouldn't have worked out. That Dad was going to die just six months later and that life was about to drastically change.
It's been a while since I have really had huge dreams about huge things happening. After my dad died I think I stopped hoping and dreaming for big huge out-of-the-box miracles. I wanted to protect my heart, so I started having low expectations so that no matter what happened I wouldn't get hurt if things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to.
My life is full of miracles. Miracles I don't even recognize.
I want to have my eyes open to them again. I don't want to be surprised when they take place anymore. I want to expect the best. I want to dream big again.
My dreams scare me these days. Not in a bad way, in a good way. And the best part about it, is that when I talk about them with my husband, he isn't scared at all.
I want to have faith like a yellow mustard seed. And I'm tellin' those mountains to move.
Beautiful!
ReplyDelete~Sarah
Love this. -becca
ReplyDelete