I love God and I love serving my Lord. The past 1 1/2-2 years have been an uphill climb, a humbling journey, and most of all a stressful teachable situation.
My weight loss goal is going to be the most difficult resolution to keep and achieve this year. I am working to get toward my pre-children weight of 128. I love my children with all my heart and am very thankful that God blessed me with them, however let's be honest...kids do a number on your body! More than just the number on the scale I am also trying to work on my eating habits. I am a late night snacker and pop drinker. I am one of those moms who somehow got in the habit of eating my kids leftover food.. so weird and gross because I hate sharing food, but I guess a part of my mommy brain just doesn't want to see food go to waste. At this point going to the gym is not really doable. I have found that YouTube has hundreds of video workouts so that is the road I am taking. My husband bought me an Instant Pot for Christmas(like a million other hubbys). I have been trying to cook more nutritious meals and having just one pot makes clean up super easy.
The next goal is to buy a new house. This goal kinda frames around the third goal because they are tied together in a lot of ways.
(I have to take a break and go back a few years to talk about our time in Georgia and the church's we visited as well as why we moved back to Michigan before I get into us now wanting to buy a house)
We moved down to Georgia in 2014 after we got married and had our daughter because we wanted to start someplace fresh, find better work, and just set out on our own and see if we could do it. Many months of searching and we found a pretty large fifth wheel camper to live in. It was like a house on wheels. We moved from Savannah to Newnan and then Jackson GA. During our full time experience we met so many nice people at the different campgrounds and RV parks we stayed at. There are so many amazing Baptist churches in Georgia and the three two that we joined while down there were wonderful. Crestwood Baptist Church in Tyrone GA was the first. It actually happened to be a church; and school, that Johnathan attended when he lived down there with his parents several years before. Pastor Edge and his family are great Godly people and it was nice to attend a church in a new area and not feel like strangers. We learned so much at this church. I really enjoyed how services were learning services. We quickly realized that we would always need a pencil and paper.Pastor Edge used power point slides like lessons. As he went through his sermon you could follow along and also take notes. It was different and really helpful for at home study.
The next church was Berean Baptist Church in Griffin GA. Never have I ever been to a more friendly and welcoming church. A co-worker of Johns and his wife went to church there and they invited us to come out and join them one Sunday morning. I took up really well with the women of the church. They had a ladies bible study on Thursdays. Those ladies were everything to me for the short while we were there. It felt nice to be around other Christian women and to learn about how Christian women talked about in the Bible and about being a Christian wife. I learned what my Spiritual gifts might be and it was just good fellowship.
During this time we were looking to try and buy a house there and that was a stressful and ultimately futile endeavor. We prayed and prayed and asked God to guide us every step of the way. We didn't think God would pick us up and carry us all the way back to the snowy north! That is just what he did! God always answers prayer maybe not in our time or the way we want or think he should, but always works all things according to HIS plan.
Now we are back in Michigan in the end spring of 2016. We realized we couldn't live in our camper because snow and below freezing temperatures so we had to decide if we wanted to pay for an apartment, live with his parents, or be homeless lol... we found a third option. The church that we married in a few years before and that we were currently attending offered to let us stay in their vacant parsonage. They couldn't rent the house out to anyone per township rules so they came to us and said that if we fixed up the house (it was completely unlivable) and worked with the young people at the church that we could live there. Johnathan and I talked about and ultimately decided that it would be our best idea. We sunk our measly 5,000 and more into fixing up the house. We put in new doors and new tub/shower, fridge, all new paneling on the walk ways and carpet in the house. The people who lived there previously had dogs and they destroyed so much in that house. It had also flooded previously so there was some damage leftover from that. A few months later and we were ready to move in.
This brings us to the last goals of buying a new home and growing in Christ.
Living in the home next to our church started out very positive and seemed like a huge answer to our prayers. Not having to pay rent was a big plus to us. We really enjoyed being back at our new church. It didn't take long for us to realize that things were not how we remembered and that probably had alot to do with out new role in the church. Instead of being attendees we were like staff members and with that came A TON of drama. As time went on it became clear that in their minds we were doing what they expected of us. We were constantly being chastised and when we tried to explain and ask for help or at least try and stick up for ourselves we were shut down. My hubby and I are not trained in Youth ministry. We've had no previous experience with soul winning or networking. We were just thrown in with two twenty year old people and told "Do It." It became clear that we needed to move on from this church, but because of the agreement that we made we were stuck. We weren't in a place where we could afford to buy a house and so all we could do was pray. Pray for healing with out church, pray for a better job, and pray that all the negativity wouldn't affect our heart and our relationship with God. Now that we have a better paying job we are beyond ready to get started on finding a new home and put all this garbage behind us.
I started this blog as a way to track my weight loss and home buying journeys
this photo is me at 176lbs.
-Jessica
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