What if God was your only option?
Enjoy this blooper picture of Paxton while I was trying to take photos of the rental house to get it in the market to sell. They were out of school this day. I think I said “can you move” out of every picture about 780 times before I just gave up haha
If you want to see some before & after’s of our reno I talk about in this blog post, go check out the reel I posted on our IG with this picture as the cover photo!
That sounds like a loaded question, right? Like, it’s crazy sometimes to think…..it might actually be true! What if God was your only option?
Being fully transparent, this has been a very challenging season of our life! For the past 7 months me and Justin took on fully remodeling my childhood home that got left to me when my grandma passed away about 10 years ago.
It was a childhood home, turned into a rental house, turned into a very long 7 month remodel!
It was very trying:
Emotionally. HEAVY ON THE EMOTIONALLY :’) There were days that it became so overwhelming I just froze.
Physically. I dont think I ever pictured myself becoming a hulk when needed, but apparently that’s a new super power of mine haha. But I can’t tell you the amount of days we would come home from working over there and we just couldnt move because we were so sore. 29 going on 89 over here :’)
Financially. This turned from something that was supposed to be maybe $2-3,000, to more maxed out credit cards quicker then I would like to admit,
And most of all - Spiritually. It took A LOT on both me and Justin to remind each other that its all in God’s hands. He wouldn’t put us on a path that he wouldn’t see us through on. On my hard days, he would remind me of that, and on his hard days, I would remind him.
I feel like I could write a whole blog post that was 10 miles long about this whole experience, (and maybe one day I will haha) but it took up so much time and space in our life for such a long time that I now have a lot to share about the experience, and how truthfully, GOD was our only option and seen us through right up until the very end.
Many of us ( its even still a work in progress for me) only go to God when we need something, or when its convenient or easy for us. When we are desperate and have sucked this world dry of what it can offer us, we then choose to turn to the only one who can truly help us, But what if we ran to God first? What if we made him our only option?
It says in Matthew 6:33 - “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you”
The Bible even tells us to seek the kingdom of God first. Before we max out the credit card, before we open our mouths with regret sometimes, before we make a mistake we cant take back. We are supposed to run to God first.
Now, I will be the first to admit, me and Justin haven’t been the best example of this, and I think that’s one of our biggest take aways from this whole experience. Yes, we knew everything was happening for a reason and in God’s time, but we turned to maxing out credit cards and being stressed more days than I can count instead of running to Him first, and seeing where he leads us in his timing,
If we live a lifestyle of making God the center of everything we do, our faith grows, and our lives become completely different.
Once we got to the hard crossroads of being so financially stretched with this reno project, and having our hands tied with what else we could do and praying for a door to open was all we had left, we started seeing miracles happen, that truly were things that nobody but us could understand. It was those types of things that if you tried to explain them to somebody, it just wouldn’t make sense. It was a God wink. Him letting us know we are in his hands.
I’m not sure if you have ever had to pay bills for 2 houses (because we have had to have electric and water on over there during all of this), provide for 2 kids, food for 4 humans and 3 dogs, be about 100K in debt trying to make sure money goes to the right spots at the right time so both of our credit stays good, and still try to live a happy life with being a good wife, husband, mother and father, in the year 2023, because lets be real, life is expensive.
IF not, it’s hard and I would 0/10 wouldn’t recommend :) haha But in all seriousness, I hope that paints a pretty good picture of why we were ready to be done with this whole process. At some point, we had to stop relying on our own strength to get us through because our life was about to CRUSH us and some days it truly was just hard to breathe, and start relying on God, His promises, His peace, and His comfort.
God wants to provide for us, help restore us, and bring peace to us. He wants our only option to be Him, because it gives Him the ability to reveal himself, and what he can and does do, for us. It really is a beautiful thing when God becomes your only option in life, when you feel like everything else is crumbling around you.
My challenge to you, is don’t wait until you feel like you are at rock bottom to reach out and talk to God. Even if it’s as simple as thanking Him for the air you got to breathe today, start small, so that when things do get big in life like they always do, He is who you naturally always run to FIRST. <3
Thanks for reading,
XOXO, Sam