31 Days Toward Understanding Autism…(day 20)

(Here’s a brief explanation for what you will see on my blog for the month of October: I’m taking part in the 31 Days of Writing Challenge over on the Nesting Place blog. The topic I chose to write about is: 31 Days Toward Understanding Autism)

As I promised yesterday, here’s some more of our story…

My husband was from Mississippi and I was from Texas, but when we got married, we just decided to stay in Mississippi. I loved it there and thought it would be a great place to start our family. (Nothing against Texas, people…it’s just what worked out well for us. )

Which means that, when we decided to move, we (and our kids) had been in the same place (and church) for around 13 years. It was all our kids had ever known, and Mississippi was all my husband had ever known. He was Lead Pastor at our church and everything was nice and settled, right?

So when my husband started feeling a ‘tug’ that there might be something more out ‘there’, I kind of (initially) fought it because we had three kids, all on the autism spectrum, and I knew that change was extremely stressful for them. So…moving? Oh, lord, no. (Not specifically speaking to you, God.)

Thinking my husband was just feeling restless, I suggested vacations and such, but…they didn’t work. And as it continued, it began to affect the kids more and more since, as I’ve mentioned previously, they are extremely sensitive to ‘energy’. Which meant they stayed ‘wound’ up…a lot. Which was…exhausting.

So finally we decided to let God decide. (We could then blame Him, right? lol) We put our house up for sale, again…(previously it was up for a year and never sold)…and told God that if it sold this time, we would know it was ‘right’.

{Side note here: Having our house ‘shown’ for a year, several times a week, drove our kids crazy. Every time we returned home, they would ‘feel‘ where the people had been, and would search for them until we could convince them that they were all gone. They would then bring all their favorite toys with them so nobody could take them. So, imagine us climbing into our car…every.single.time our house was being ‘shown’…with toys piled to the ceiling because our kids were afraid they would be gone when we returned. lol! It.was.crazy. Okay…now back to the show.}

So when our house went on the market for the second time, truthfully, I wasn’t worried a bit. I just knew it would never sell. There were a few things that still needed to be done to make it more ‘marketable’, so…I wasn’t a bit concerned.

(Ummm…yeah.)

Three.weeks.later….with the carpet still needing to be replaced…it sold. Three weeks.

And here’s where things got a bit tricky.

Everyone (family, friends, church members) knew our house was up for sale, and that we needed a four-bedroom house so our kids could have their own ‘space’. So everyone just assumed we would (now) find a perfect little house and just move right in. But what no one knew is that, we had put a fleece out before God. ‘Do we step out in faith, following where You lead, or do we stay right here? Show us.’

And He did….in three.short.weeks. (Why is it that when we want God to answer, He doesn’t, and when we sort of don’t want Him to…He does? So weird.)

So to say I had a few panic attacks would simply be deceiving (not to mention a massive understatement). Thing is, I didn’t expect God to answer so clearly and so quickly, and yet, there we were, with a very clear answer. Now what?

(Allow me to explain…) Normally when you get a new job, you turn in a 2-weeks’ notice, and maybe even have your friends, family, and church members pray with you for God’s guidance in the process. But our family, friends, and church members…were all wrapped up together. We couldn’t just say, ‘Well, everyone, we feel God now has something new for us so…we just want ya’ll to sit back and wait with us until God gives us some more specifics.’ (Uh…yeah.)

Thing is, we wanted everyone (in the church we pastored and our kids) to feel secure and safe…(which, ironically, is the last thing walking-by-faith ever is…secure and safe.)

We had ‘protocol’ to pay attention to, and we also had three kids with autism to think about. We needed to figure out what the next step was and…God wasn’t exactly sending a daily PowerPoint-presentation for us to follow. (No matter how many Legos I threw at Him. Legos being, as with Moses…what I ‘had in my hand’. See appropriate Bible story.)

It was as faith is…one.step.at.a.time.

Which doesn’t really bode well when you’re trying to plan a move anywhere…for three kids with autism.

So we decided to rent…temporarily (oh…yay)…and that’s what we’ll chat about tomorrow.