Spokaniversary.

It’s our Spokaniversary this week.  4 years ago we moved to Spokane, completely blinded by our good intentions and belief that we were following the will of God.  We had set out to do good things, make good choices and trust in what we thought was the Lord’s leading.  I do think the Lord led us to Spokane.  But the reasons we came have been disproved through the things He has done.  

I shudder to think that I hated this place, that I hated Spokane seems like a foreign and far off place that I am so glad He redeemed.  4 years ago we traveled here with hopes of a different future, for prosperity really, if we were being honest.  And how funny- that is what we did in fact receive, however, in His way and through His actual will.  I often describe our first year in Spokane as ‘a holy scraping’.  A year of removal of the dead and a replacement of what was living and true. A year of bringing darkness to light.  We moved here through the sanctions of a promotion, it came with money and position; title and honor, in a way.  And really none of that came.  I think we feel more broke now than we ever have, sure we have been provided for greatly but I feel like we look for more places to give it away than to benefit from it ourselves.  Yes, it came with a new position for Brian. But through that ,he has been provided with more reasons to lay the power this world offers to death and choose His identity in the One who knows his name and has marked his value.  And through that, I have experienced my own source of death.  I have been made aware of not only an invitation but a command, to remove my husband from the ranking of savior to that of a saved sinner who has been set aside for me to journey this place with.  

This time could be described as one of the greatest tragedies that our family has ever experienced but not in the way some would expect. It is a tragedy to realize that the life you had been living was a lie and a sham.  And that the one you had fooled the most was yourself.  We had all the resources of the kingdom at our fingertips but for more than a decade accepted only half of them, which really meant we accepted none of them.  These may seem like harsh words or a harsh description, there are some of you that will long to respond to this with the reassurance that we had done good before and that is true. But that is due to his mercy not our goodness; what flowed out was a grace that we did not in fact deserve and that is what remains even now.  However, the mercy is realized and the grace pulls us back to the throne as we no longer desire to do ‘good things’ as much as we long to do His things.  We no longer trust in the ability we have to be good but in our ability to be broken, trusting that He will supply what we need to be complete.  It’s no longer about what we do but who we are in Him.

Out of the last 4 years came death, but even more so, came life.  A life that includes an acknowledgement of our brokenness and a claim that speaks of our neverending need to be restored and redeemed.  Jesus has and will forever be our rescue. He paid our ransom on the cross and has left His Spirit to lead and to guide us into and towards the gates of heaven. Through that we can operate without a need for prosperity here on this earth, rather a prosperity that will be fully received when we reach what was intended for us all along….heaven.  He used Spokane to show us that.

Our home is not here, but here we will rest until He moves us onward or upward.

Ephesian 5:2;8 ESV - 2 “And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light…”