Happy New Year!

To start off, obviously it's been awhile... I have written and erased probably about 10 different posts since we moved, none of them seemed "right" and I was having a difficult time with... well myself, quite honestly. When we moved I had this vision in my head of what I would be blogging and how my life would be. What can I say, I am a romantic at heart, and no matter how "prepared" we might think we are for life's curveballs, most generally we are not. Nor can be, really! So when things weren't panning out quite the way we'd hoped, I found myself faced with the dilemma of wanting to write a post filled with positive, awesome things instead of our reality and knowing I couldn't and wouldn't do that. Not that there weren't MANY positive and awesome things to write about because there most certainly were! Then about 2 months ago I uploaded all the pictures off my phone to post pictures of the house we're in and some I'd saved for the blog and my phone got wiped clean and our fairly new MacBook just stopped working. All in one day.  But literally, every time I sat down to write it was like a wall shot up and I just couldn't seem to find any words. So I let it go, deciding to stick to shorter Facebook posts as updates, praying over our MacBook to come back from the dead (it kind of has...it had 36 hours of revival and now just really doesn't like the internet), and gave up on it for awhile. But I'd love to give longer updates for those I know who love us and are praying for us, so a new year calls for another shot at this, right? I think so. :)

I will back up a little here. The story I had wanted to tell was more along the lines of, we moved, found a house within the first week of arrival, Cisco loved his job and the people he worked with, we were financially doing awesome, Pilgrim City Church was exploding in numbers, and we had made some amazing friends. Two of those things came true (the very first and the very last). Now, I'm not completely silly, I know we make our plans and God has His, and more often than not He loves to rearrange our plans. So while some of these things were a little startling (and scary) we didn't despair (most of the time), prayed (a LOT), and He saw us through and continues to.
It took us 3 months, almost to the day, to move into our own place. Cisco's first couple months at his new job were completely stressful and the foreman of the crew he mainly worked with was downright harassing him. Like, he was just MEAN and completely unpredictable, exploding at Cisco for important things like, how he was holding a rake or picking up branches. I've never seen my husband more beat down but he handled it like the patient champ he is and held his tongue on numerous occasions. By mid September he was placed on another crew with a different foreman and things became drastically better for him, Praise the Lord!

During it all, we kept getting this verse:

  " Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary."

Isaiah 40:31

 

A verse we know well, but the word wait took on a whole new importance this time. A lesson we haven't been exactly unfamiliar with but maybe never to the degree or way we've had to learn it here. Yet, through all this and many other things not mentioned on here, we are so thankful the Lord brought us to Denver. We can truly say we LOVE it here and He has given us such a heart for this city and the needs we've seen thus far. He's blessed us with incredible friendships in our church family that quite honestly is even more than we hoped to pray for. While the church hasn't exactly exploded in numbers (that's what church planting is all about, right? ;)....) the Lord is definitely doing a sweet work in all of us and building a strong foundation. It's messy. We all have had our moments of tears, of joy and many other emotions. There's a lot of kids and I mean a lot. So it's noisy and chaotic most of the time. But it's REAL. I think we've all had to learn, to one degree or another, to put down the façade we've been hiding under and just truly be real and honest and raw. It's been downright awesome.

Also, I kid when I talk about the church exploding. :) I think one always has that hope but we really didn't have a whole lot of expectations as far as the church went. Even the small expectations or thoughts on pretty much anything we did have, have all been drastically changed since being here. In a good way. A really good way. I praise God we didn't have some big agenda or ideals for church planting. We all would've been in for a giant wake up call and some enormous disappointment! It is a work that is done and completed by Him alone and where He decides to take it, we are in 100%. I can say for Cisco and I, it's been a great time of healing and revelation. 2013 was one wild ride, no doubt about that. But I am ecstatic for 2014. Happy New Year!