Kentucky or Bust.

      I love my walks at night with my dog. She is afraid of people, so, we go out every night fairly late. The winter used to not stop us, but as of late, I just can't seem to tolerate the cold like I used to. I think it's more of a laziness, or a little of winter depression. Whenever I do go out, I listen to my music, talk to GOD, and stare up at the sky, knowing that He is listening to me. I'll ask questions, sometimes He answers right away, sometimes it's days later. Sometimes, GOD will bring up a subject, and we will discuss it while I'm walking. The majority of the conversations revolve around my bewilderment concerning a desire that I have in my heart which makes absolutely no sense.  It's a desire that has plagued me for six years. The more time that goes by the less sense it makes. 

      Tonight, GOD brought up our move here to Kentucky. Now, that had to come from the recesses of His mind, because that was twenty-seven years ago, but He refreshed my memory of all the details. Suddenly, in my mind, I was back in Massachusetts, and memories flooded my heart.  In 1991, my husband and another couple who were our good friends kicked around the idea of our two families leaving Massachusetts. My best friend's parents were here in Kentucky, and we  were contemplating packing up and leaving.

    The plan was that they would come first, then we would follow in about six months or so, after they got settled. That pipe dream fell through, when they had decided to stay.   An opportunity to buy a house was presented to us, with some fancy footwork in financing, which was totally illegal, but we were baby Christians, and we jumped at the chance to be homeowners.  What did we know about ethics and honesty. We found a lot down near the Cape, and the builder built us a brand new hip roof ranch. It was a "HIP" roof, all right.  Ugly as sin, but it had to meet the specs of the neighborhood association's requirements for a home. 

     It was our first house, so we were pretty excited, and petrified at the same time. Immediately, after signing the papers, and I think it may have been within a day or two, my best friend and her husband decided to pack up and move in with her parents in Kentucky. Of course, I was devastated. The mortgage had a three year minimum, so we could not sell the house within three years. We were trapped. We spent the next two years completely house broke, and what we thought was miserable.  I look back on those days now, and realize just how happy we were.  Isn't that always the way, though?   We could not afford anything, and then the housing market went belly up. Now, selling was out of the question, because we couldn't get what we paid, and maybe not even what we owed.

    As 1993 rolled around, the desire to move to Kentucky became so much stronger. People would ask, where is Kentucky and why would you want to go there? To a New Englander, the world drops off at Connecticut! I did not even know where it was, but I wanted to go. I wanted to move there so badly.  We talked about it all the time, but the desire was strongest in me. I could not tell you why I wanted to move here, not even gather a guess. It was just a very strong longing. In December 1993, my friend invited me out for a visit, and that was it. I fell completely in love with Kentucky. Who falls in love with Kentucky in the winter? That made no sense.

     The summer of 1994, we drove out as a family and stayed a week. That was all it took to convince my husband that from now on, it would be Kentucky or bust for us. From December 1993 to December 1994, I cried every single  day with want of coming here. Again, people would ask why, and I could not tell anyone why. I just wanted to come so bad that it hurt. My husband was a board-draftsman, meaning pencil and paper. No one at that time was drafting that way. Auto-cad had been in for a long time.  He knew he needed to learn if he wanted to find a job in Lexington, Kentucky.

     He took a five week course in September- October, and we managed to scrape up enough money for him to drive out here in November to look for a job. He had only five days to find a job. Of course, it was on the last day that he was hired by a small land-surveying company as an auto-cad draftsman. Now, the problem was selling the house. The market was very bad, so we assumed that he would have to come out here first, and I would have to stay behind with the children, until the house sold.  We had no idea how long that would take, because we had listed it in the early fall, and not one bite.  No one even came to look at it. 

     Again, I cried everyday at the thought of the agony of trying to sell the house, work, and take care of my two young children. One was six, the other was two. I was constantly questioned by family and friends if I had lost my marbles to even attempt to leave MA as poor as we were. We assumed that we would have to take a loss on the house, if not having it foreclosed on, which was a distinct possibility. We would have come out here with no credit, and no money. The contract with that realtor was up in early December.  We signed with a new realtor right after he was hired at his new job in Lexington.  Wouldn't you know it, but we listed the house with the new realtor, and in ten days it was sold in a dead market. Isn't that how GOD works?

     My husband was only going to have to come out for two weeks to work here, and then he would fly home.  We would pack a 24-foot U-haul, because that was the biggest truck we could afford, and we packed that house in so tight in that truck. We  towed his pick-up truck, jam packed with whatever we could fit in it.   The only profit we made on the house was enough to pay for the rental truck, first month's rent, security deposit, and the gas to fill the truck, that's it. We even had to pack food, because we had so little money left. 

     The drive here in December was hell on wheels, as we hit a blizzard in New York and Pennsylvania. The truck would not exceed 50-mph, on flat ground and 35-mph up hill.  Much of the way was white out conditions, so it was a long scary haul. A few wrong turns, an empty gas tank, gliding down the steep hills in Maryland, hoping for a gas station at the end of the hill, and twenty-four hours later, we crossed the state line into Kentucky.  

  

   So, what was my point in all of this. It's the same point I was making in another blog post,  My Beautiful TEN Bicycles from GOD, Planned and Built Before the Creation of the World!    When we delight ourselves in the LORD, and want to follow His will for our lives, He is going to put some pretty strange desires in our hearts, because, He has a plan, and we do not know it. Most of the time, GOD's plans for us are nothing like we ever imagined.  As I have said many times before, my life's verse describes my life perfectly.  The Hebrew word for "shall give" in Psalm 37:4 is nathan (נָתַן)  which means, set/put. I could not tell anyone why I so desperately wanted to come to Kentucky, because I did not understand why myself.  That desire, though, was strong enough to make me cry with want every single day.

   Through every obstacle, GOD made a way over them. It was His will for us to come here twenty-seven years ago.  We were broke with two children in MA, and stayed that way here while six more babies joined our small family. The LORD knew that there was no way we could have afforded a third child, let alone six more, living in Taxachussetts.  He planned each one of our children's lives long before both of us were even born.  When we first met in college, my husband told people that the reason why he wanted to date me was because I did not want any children at all, ever.   I think they call that bait and switch, but it wasn't me who baited and switched, it was the LORD. 

   So, if you have a desire in your heart that makes absolutely no sense, and you are delighting in the LORD with all of your heart, soul and mind, rest assured that desire He put in your heat to work out His will in your life. It will only make sense after the puzzle pieces come together, and that could take decades.  There may be mountains to climb and valleys to dwell in before it all comes together, but like Scripture says, Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  (Proverbs 3:5-6)  He is holding on to you the whole time you question, cry, and try to decipher why this strange desire which makes no sense, frustrates the daylights out of you, and can even cause you tears every day since the first moment you felt that strange pang.