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that time we almost moved to wilmington.

so here is a crazy story,

two weeks ago we were almost going to move to wilmington. but as it turns out, and much to our surprise, we are not.

need some explanation?

adam and i have had this sense for awhile that God may have a plan to uproot us at some point. we aren't sure why or when, but we are pretty confident it will happen. for whatever reason when our church announced that they are planting a church in wilmington we both had the thought "huh, this could be it." so out of obedience we started going to interest meetings, getting to know (and LOVE!) the team, and praying hard core about the decision. of course, all we wanted was a clear answer. and of course, we weren't getting one. for a couple months.

two weekends ago we went on a retreat to wilmington with the team. we worshiped together, served together, and started to solidify some friendships we were getting excited about. it was an amazing weekend and we felt the clarity coming just around the corner. we drove through some neighborhoods and looked at houses. we picked one out that we had big plans to "fix up." it was all but written in stone.

we got home and started thinking about whether we could sell our place, how we would approach the job searches in wilmington, etc. we were right there.

and then monday came.

i woke up and was praying, and for the first time (maybe in my life) i got a resounding answer. and it wasn't a "yes" to my surprise. it was a great big "no." i didn't tell adam at that point. i wanted to see if by some miracle God would give him the same clarity. later that day i was nursing on the couch and i heard adam from the kitchen say "sweetheart. i don't think we are going."

so there it was. this answer we'd prayed and prayed and prayed for. and it was the exact opposite of what we thought we'd hear. we were willing to uproot our life. move with our new baby. start over with friendships. and really? you're telling us no??

it was confusing and relieving all at the same time. it was the first time we'd gone through a really big decision process together. and we learned several things:

what it means to have open hands.
what it means to be patient.
what it means to trust the Holy Spirit.
what it means to be willing to move somewhere else to live a totally missional life.
what it means to stay where you are, in a city you already have a huge heart for, and be missionaries here.

maybe that's why we went through this.
maybe that's one (of many) things that God taught us.
so yeah, we almost moved to wilmingtong
but we didn't.

hey durham. what's up.



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the truth about becoming three.


i have been wanting to write this post for awhile but haven't quite had the words or the time. but here i am, hands on keys, making myself write. herewego...

let's go back to that first week in december when we suddenly had our sweet baby in the house. as much as i loved the idea of our new family of three, i was subconsciously avoiding it entirely. i remember panicking that if we couldn't get her down, we'd never have time "us two." i would get anxious as it got dark thinking, "but this is adam and me time." i wanted "family time" to end and our old life to resume each evening. i remember the day that God convicted me of this. convicted me of being selfish and holding on to something good and refusing His something better. i remember Him saying to me, "elise, it's not just you and adam now. now you are becoming three. embrace this and you will find joy." it was so obvious. but so hard. "becoming one" when we got married was easy peasy compared to this.

that night there was a duke game and we were all cuddled up on the couch watching it on my computer. florence was still at that (brief) stage where all she wanted to do was snuggle all the time. and i had her in my arms, adam next to me, and duke playing basketball. i thought, "oooooh, yeah, of course! we are three now. and here we are watching duke as a family of three." and you know what, i was overflowing in that moment. looking from her to adam to jabari parker dunking...it was so much better than before. and i was so glad it wasn't just adam and me watching that game. we were indoctrinating the littlest nelson. and i was embracing it fully. so was she.

so fast forward 3 months: three nights ago we officially dropped florence's "dream feed." this was when we'd go get her around 10:30 pm and give her a bottle in her sleep to kind of fill-er-up, if you will, so she'd sleep the rest of the night. adam always fed her while i sat next to him, kissing her sleeping face over and over. but she was hardly eating anything at it anymore, so we dropped it.

again, i had this moment after that first night where i thought, "amazing! now we are off duty when we put her down at 7:30. we can go to bed as early as we want! we can have lots of mamma-papa time. like old times again!"

now fast forward again to last night when this convo happened:

a: "is her bottle ready?"
e: "but, we aren't giving her this feed, remember."
a: (looking sad) "oh...yeah."
e: "we can probably still just go hold her in her sleep. she's sooo cuddly when she's sleeping."
a: grins and nods.

so, we snuck right up stairs and just stared at our baby girl sleep when we could have been having that "just us" time that i so badly thought i wanted. while we were standing in her dark nursery we smiled at each other. and hugged each other. and exchanged "i love yous" with each other. and we kissed her cheeks. and we kissed each other. and we realized that being three was the very best thing we could be.



photos by the arrow house. more from this shoot.


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