Partly Painted Fence

 James 2:22 “You see his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete.”

 

 

  In March 2008, my husband Chad began painting this fence.  We were getting ready to put the house on the market and move to our hometown where he was going to be the head football coach of our alma mater.   While painting this fence his mom who lives  here became ill.  The call that she had cancer came while we were in the process of painting this fence. 

Today May 30, 2010, this is what our fence still looks like. See we made the difficult decision to stay and for her to move in with us so that we could care for her and try to make her as comfortable as possible.  Life changed and the fence being painted just wasn’t a priority anymore.  We had many more important things to deal with. 

To me, this fence has been a reminder of where we wanted our lives to go.  We were painting the fence ready to move on to better things and for me to be close to my family!  This fence is also a reminder as to where God wanted us to go.  The unpainted part doesn’t necessary represent just us staying but represents our willingness to go through some ugly times!   We definitely have had our share of extremely trying times and things have not gone nearly the way we would have wanted! 

You see when we decided to stay, Chad no longer had a job.  The head coaching job he had resigned from already had a new coach.  So he had to settle for an assistant’s job and is still an assistant coach 2 years later.  And his mom moving in with us, well that wasn’t a smooth ride either!  Not at all the plan we had for us!

And I stayed with my job but the stress of work and home eventually gave way to me taking a volunteer severance package last May.  I was OK with doing it because I wanted to pursue a career in teaching but no jobs came open last year.  A year later I still remain unemployed!  Not at all the plan we had for us!

But God’s plan I can say has had its high points with the lows but it would not have been the plan I would have picked given all the details!  But through helping my mother-in-law, I gained patience in my life (although I could definitely use more). I’ve gained a greater love and respect for my husband seeing him willing to care for  his mother no matter how difficult it became or what the personal cost would be to his career.  We have gained more family time with me not working and with Chad being just an assistant coach. 

See in the world’s eye we probably look like a failure and look like we made some bad decisions, seemingly, that our income has taken major hits  but in God’s eye, He sees us as having made the best decisions and has richly blessed us with that.  I do believe the time and the place will come where God will deliver us into the dreams in our heart but for now it is for us to enjoy where we are and fully trust Him.

Today Chad is  outside right now painting the fence.  No we aren’t physically moving but the time has come to move on. Our faith and our actions worked together. Now  it’s time to complete our faith!  No more reminders of the decisions we made just the completeness of a new coat of paint over it all that says we are moving on with God!