Big Changes

I have hardly updated this blog over the last couple months...mainly because we spent almost every free moment for 7 weeks trying to finish our basement.  The reason we were frantically trying to finish it is because in December Stephen decided to resign from our church here, and then last week Thursday he announced it to the board, and on Sunday he announced it to the church.  Our last day is May 22nd.

I haven't said a lot about the last two years, but they have been difficult.  Stephen always felt strongly that God was telling us we needed to stay in spite of the ugliness, so we did.  We have an AMAZING group of people at Crystal Lake Community Church, but there have been a couple families that have been divisive, and gossip and slander has absolutely destroyed Stephen and our family.  Most of this has gone unaddressed, and Stephen can't do it alone.  We are hoping that people will step up and say "enough is enough" now that he has resigned...sometimes it takes something big for there to be change.

The other part of why he is leaving is that with all that has gone on, the church has not been a good place for failure, or even just being human.  Stephen has very rarely been given the benefit of the doubt, and takes the blame for a lot of issues.  That has been HARD.  I think more for me, than even him.

This all sounds very negative, but we truly do love CLCC and the people there.  It has been such a place of great joy and amazing growth and freedom in our lives.  But we are weary and need some rest and healing.

We have no idea what is next or where we are going.  We are just trusting God one step at a time, beginning with putting our house up for sale.  We would like the kids to finish school, so we are trusting the timing of God selling our house and finding a church.

The kids had a really hard time at first, and just cried and cried...but they are doing a lot better now.  We all have bad days where we are mourning the loss of our life here - we truly feel like God called us to CLCC long term, but with that, He gives all of us free will, which means sometimes sin and other people's choices can effect that plan.  But we trust that God has a new plan for our lives and we are excited to see where that leads!