Surrender

Because life can be completely random and God is hilarious, I was asked to speak to a large group of women at a conference in Orlando last week. I'm still laughing about it. When I got an email asking if I could help with a "Women In Radio" event, I literally thought they needed people to volunteer for cleanup. For real. So before I even knew what the request was, I said, "Sure! I can help with anything you need. Just send me the details."

Famous last words.

I was asked to speak for three minutes about my purpose as a woman and how that purpose translates into being in radio from a record label perspective.

Gulp.

I had two days to decide what I would talk about. I know three minutes isn't long, but I was sweating. Surprisingly though, the words for my talk came quickly. A huge part of my story involves my leaving the record label world (and my dream job) to step out in obedience to stay home with Crosbi. It was God asking me to surrender my goals and dreams for His plans and how that season of staying home, while incredibly challenging, was one of the sweetest seasons of my life. I also spoke about how my trust in God was honored and my dreams restored with my return to the music industry. Because God is good. Surrendering is good.

Except it's not easy. The irony in all of this is that my talk on surrender was more for me than anyone else. I find myself in another season of not knowing how things will work out. I don't know what the future holds, but I know my current setup isn't working for my family. I'm being faced with the decision to surrender again. And it's scary.

But God is so quick to remind us of His goodness. Just this morning He reminded me again that His plans are better than mine.

I haven't shared this story on my blog, mainly because I haven't found the time, but I want to remember this:

When Todd and I first started looking at land, we found a lot on a private lake and we were smitten. Then reality hit and we came to our senses. It was way over our budget. So we continued to look and found a little acreage in a neighborhood. The perfect compromise for the two of us: Todd wanting to be in the middle of nowhere, me wanting other humans around. We kept an eye on the "perfect" lot for a full year. We walked it over and over again. We took our parents to see it. We met the next door neighbor.

Because the lot had sat untouched for years, we took our time. We got our finances in order, we sketched floor plans, we daydreamed about life in the country. Then just days (literally days) before we made an offer on the land, our realtor called to tell us there was another offer on the table. We found ourselves in a bidding war that we knew we weren't going to win. We were devastated. Our former house was already under contract and now we didn't know where we were going to go.

There was another lot on a hill that we knew was for sale, but had never looked at, and sure enough, others were looking at that lot too. In desperation, Todd drove over to look at it by the light of a flashlight and on hope and a prayer, we made an offer on the land we now live on. Here's the funny thing. Before we broke ground, we brought our parents back out and they all said we had lucked out. That we actually got the better lot. Todd and I were having a hard time believing it. We felt like we had been left with less than our best. But we were wrong. The longer we live here, the more we know this is exactly where we were always supposed to be.

One of the first mornings in our house, I tip-toed upstairs early for some quiet time and I was greeted by this view:

And just today, when Todd walked out the front door for work, this view:

The same view from the other lot would have been the front of the neighbor's house across the street. We didn't get less than His best. Not even close.

Things feel really uncertain and I don't know how everything will ultimately play out, but I know God has this. I know I can trust Him. And I know the view is so much better when I do.

xoxo

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We're Moving!

The big news, the exciting adventure that I hinted about last year? This is it. We put our house on the market. It sold in less than 24 hours, and we're moving to the country!

I've had lots of thoughts swirling in my head about this post. Mainly because this is our family's scrapbook so I want to record everything, and also because friends and family who live out of state read this and I want to fill in all the details (because sometimes my parents don't relay all of the correct info). Ha!

About a year ago, Todd and I both started to feel like a busy suburban neighborhood wasn't working for our family. Between trips back to Missouri and long talks about our childhood, we knew we wanted Crosbi to have a childhood very similar to the ones we had. We were also starting to feel the walls closing in a bit. We would be in Missouri, and I would sneak out on my parents' back deck and it was like the weight of the world fell from my shoulders. I breathed deeply. I listened to the wind blowing and birds chirping. And the silence. Ahhh, the silence. Those feelings and sounds are part of my DNA. Which means they are also part of Crosbi's.

The struggle was that to afford the land we wanted, we would have to move out of our county. We live in a very affluent county with access to the best schools in not only the state, but the country. But the decision was actually quite simple. Crosbi's future isn't determined by the school she goes to. Just like it wasn't for me or Todd.

Anyone who knows me knows that I grew up in rural Missouri. I'm the daughter of a small jewelry repair shop owner and a truck driver. Money was never going to be my ticket to a bright future. When I was ten years old, I remember holding an Alan Jackson cassette in my hand and thinking, "I want to work for his record label one day." I turned the cassette over and saw that he was with Sony Nashville and I decided then and there that I would be an employee of Sony Music.

The laughs followed. The sarcastic "good luck with that" was a phrase I heard often. I didn't know anyone from Ozark who ended up working for a record label. People from Ozark tend to stay in Ozark.

But God, who planted the dream in my heart, would see it to fruition. I not only have been (and still am!) an employee of Sony, I even got to work on an Alan Jackson (hymns) record. God is good. I didn't go to a fancy high school. But I had a dream and I had the drive. No school district can give that to my daughter.

The other thing that became really important to us was that Crosbi have ample opportunity during her school years. One of my favorite bloggers, Laura Tremaine of Hollywood Housewife took the words out my mouth with this post about growing up in rural Oklahoma (she has worked in film/TV and is now married to a famous Hollywood producer):

"I was really into choir when I was in high school. One of the benefits of being in a small town is that even with my mediocre talent, I was able to participate in all kinds of activities that would have been impossible in a larger, more competitive school. With zero training, I was on my school's pom squad and part of a very active show choir, and these are my favorite memories of the teenage years."

I mean, she's practically describing my life. I was on the pom squad, the marching band, and student council. Any group or activity I wanted to join had space for me and I never once took lessons or had special training outside of school. Same for Todd. He was captain of our football team, homecoming king, played baseball, basketball, and was named "Mr. P.E." I don't say all of this to brag. We are nothing but two average kids from the Ozarks, but attending a small school opened so many doors for us and we both look back at high school as some of the best memories of our lives. We wouldn't trade our experiences for anything. We only hope Crosbi's memories will be the same.

So there you have it. We're moving to the country. We close on our house in just a few short weeks and we'll begin building sometime in April with hopes to be moved in by fall. We're already dreaming of tree houses, tire swings, a fire pit, and the big garden we'll plant next spring. The school district might not be the "best" to some, but it's the best for us and the dreams we have for our family. Plus, lower taxes!

Everything has fallen into place so quickly and carefully that we are confident in our decision and we're giddy about the future.

I hope to post a lot about this new journey in the coming months. I hope you'll join me and follow along!

Until then, I'll be singing...I'm from the country and I like it that way...

xoxo

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