Our summer has been so full and eventful! As always I want to start with God is SO GOOD!!! You might remember reading previously about me wanting to “run away” and go on a work trip with my husband to Florida. But due to some personal reasons it was stressing my husband out and the Lord told me to stop pushing it and to trust him. So I did. It was hard because I knew I could make it work if I just had a chance to try but instead, I obeyed and I let it go. I didn't know what the future would hold or if we would ever go anywhere as a family but he gave me peace.
*Tip on how to hear the Lord, he usually speaks through his word and leads with his peace. Example from this situation, my role as a wife is to submit to my husband correct? I wanted to go really really really bad but my husband didn’t like the idea of it being so rushed and done without his bosses approval (since the trip was work related) etc. If I pushed it hard enough, I’m sure he would have let me have my way but we’ve been married long enough for me to know that getting my way doesn’t always end up being the best decision. Thankfully I caught myself, asked the Lord about it and decided to obey the Bible and honor my husband. As soon as I did tha,t we got peace back in our home and I knew that was the right choice. I didn’t hear an audible voice, see a sign or a vision, just felt the still calm reminder from the Holy Spirit to respect my husband. Nothing complicated or “spiritual” just me an average person going to the Lord instead of fighting for what I want. Anyone can do that, it’s that simple!*
Sometime later my husbands boss called him, on a Saturday morning while my husband and I were having coffee together and asked him if “the wife and children” would like to go on a work trip with him, out of town for three weeks?? Umm YES! OF COARSE the wife would want to go! Lol I had no idea that it could even be a possibility for him to offer but the Lord has his ways! The trip was supposed to be sometime around March but kept getting postponed. Finally the date was set for the end of June.
I saw the Lords hand throughout the entire trip. Starting with the timing of it, location and in every single big and small detail. I want to share this with you not just to share but also to remind myself of how good God is to us if we just allow him to be.
To start off, the hotel was covered by the company. On the trip that I wanted to realize I would have had to come up with the money myself, it was ten hours away and no where near the beach. This trip was only four hours from us and near the beach! My kids don’t like road trips so this was perfect!
When it was finally time for us to go, it’s summer which is PERFECT because the hotel pool is open and the weather is just right for the beach, which turned out to only be 8 minutes from where we were staying! Costco was about 10 (we all need a Costco near by right??), the church I went to visit was also 10, the waterpark 20, mini golf 3 minutes, etc.. it may not seem like a big deal but with five kids in a new town, with sooo many people and traffic (surprisingly it was really bad there), every mile makes a difference. The fact that this trip was a three week trip is also AMAZING! We are new to vacations (this was our first one with all of us together) so I have no experience with how things go. I spent the first week getting used to it and then fully enjoyed the second week. We came back home after the two weeks for the fourth of July and went back the following week. Even that was such a blessing! We got a little break from always being in the heat and in the sun, I was able to repack, do laundry and be reenergized for another week of being away from home. God is so good you guys and I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet. Eeek I’m so excited lol.
Going there we were under the impression that we were going to have a kitchen and a full fridge in the hotel room that we were staying at but last minute miscommunication happened and we ended up without a kitchen or a full size fridge. I had brought two coolers worth of food to cook with and now I wouldn't be able to use most of it. It didn’t bother me much because I don’t mind myself a challenge and I stood on the fact that God gave us this vacation so nothing would ruin it for me. I brought food that we could warm up in a microwave and plenty of cereal and ingredients for PBJ sandwiches. My husband was disappointed and a bit upset at first but his boss said he’ll make up for it, he would give us some extra funds. All that misunderstanding turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Little did I know just how much extra everything would cost. I pictured us just living at the hotel and going to the beach and pool everyday and that being about it. (All free right??) But I didn’t take into account how much work all that would require and the fact that it would exhaust the kids to be constantly swimming and being in the sun. Parking everywhere cost, beach, downtown, museums, literally everywhere. I had saved up some money to bring with us to do the aquarium and eat out but things turned out much different then I expected.
The first week my older two kids weren’t with us. They stayed back with my mom to go to a youth conference with our church. So having just the littles I figured I would break up the water days with other activities. We were working with the weather too since the heat front was coming in, we had thunderstorms on the forecast the entire week, thankfully though that was not the case and we had a good balance of both. One day I took them to the children’s museum, then my husband worked extra the first few days to get a Friday off and we were able to visit the Angel oak tree with him and the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier ship. I’m so happy he was able to enjoy some of the adventures with us.
That is all one tree! Estimated to be about 400-500 year old!
I got the last three photo off of unsplash, I lived in the moment an didn’t think to take many pictures.
Things tried to come against my mood, emotions, my kids etc but I stood my ground and held on to the peace and the gift of this vacation that the Lord gave us. For example I got hit with horrible anxiety about my older kids coming to join us and the drama that might come with it. Another incident is that one of my twins got separated from me on accident (I had to pry it out of him because I noticed unusual behavior) I still have no idea when we got separated, I knew where my kids were at all times but he didn’t see me for a bit and with us being in a new town first time, it caused panic and fear. He began to experience attachment anxiety when I was not in sight, even if he was with dad or siblings.
After my older two came we began to deal with some teenage drama. My sweet husband reassured me that it was not the end of the world (as usual lol). Thankfully I also had my mother there for a few days to process some of the things I was dealing with internally. She told me not to say anything to any of my children until the Lord gives me a word for each specific child. I smirked and told her, in that case I might have to wait for ages. She said “then wait as long as it takes”. I prayed about it, gave everything a lot of thought and decided to take her advice. What do you know, over the course of the next few days the Lord brought back memories that were able to aid me and he gave me a word for each child that needed it. Within a moment I went from feeling like my world is falling apart and all is hopeless, to being so excited for a renewed relationship with my children and the fact that the Lord does want to be involved in every single conversation and dilemma that presents itself. He cares and if you wait patiently he WILL speak to you and give you wisdom in all areas of your life. He is so so good and loving and is truly ALL that we need. He satisfies every desires we think we have because he is so much more than enough. We can only experience it though when we go to him, patiently and wholeheartedly trust him. Trust the relationship that you have with him. Trust, that time and time again as you show up and wait on him, he will teach you how to hear his voice, he will guide you through his word (the Bible) and it never fails!
Typically my inclination is to have every single detail planned out in my day and week but when we got there I quickly realized that that wouldn’t be a possibility. Not knowing what we would all feel like doing the next day or what the weather would actually be like, I decided to take it one day at a time. I bought a parking pass for the beach right next to us and that made spontaneous one hour trips more feasible. Some days we went for a day, some we just went for the sunset and every single time it was just what we all needed. Every morning I prayed this prayer “Lord we make our plans but you direct our steps” and he did! One night while at the beach, I randomly got up and quickly started to get ready, I told the kids to hustle picking things up because I really wanted to leave. As soon as we each picked up our bags a huge wave came up, it would have soaked all our belongings but because we already had everything off the floor nothing but half of my mat that I didn’t finish wrapping up got wet.
Another time we were at the waterpark and the time came to reapply sunscreen but before doing that I asked the Lord if maybe we should leave instead, a few minutes later I sensed that it would be better that we go. I got the kids, we all went to shower and change. When I got back to clean up our things I noticed there was no one in the pool area. My mom told me that they just had everyone get out of the water. I didn’t bother to find out what happened but I did thank the Lord for his perfect timing! The same timing was when we left the waterpark to go to Sam’s Club to get lunch. There was light traffic when we were heading that way but when we were heading back the traffic on the opposite side was sooo bad. (Literally stand still and lasted for miles and miles). Things like this might not mean much to some but they do for me, I am so in awe of every little thing that the Lord took care of for us. Even the fridge and kitchen situation in the first two weeks ended up being a huge blessing because without the extra funds we wouldn’t have been able to do all the extra side things that we got to do. We even went out to eat as a family for the first time lol (something other than Little Caesars or Chick-Fill-A that is) the kids were surprised that there are other great tasting places to eat out at haha. Again I keep wanting to say God is so so GOOD!
Probably my favorite thing about the trip was that it was also our FIFTEENTH anniversary. My husband was able to get off early that day and my sweet mother took the kids out, so him and I went out for lunch together. It was a treat to go on a date, the fact that mother was able to be there to help with the kids was also a huge blessings! (Thank you SO much mother dear!)
But you guys, FIFTEEN years! How did time fly by so fast?? I feel like we are just getting started but to be honest it’s so much better than in the beginning because we’ve been through so much and we have learned to love each other and to trust God in areas we still need to work on. We aren’t perfect but God is so good and is helping us, teaching us and leading us every step of the way. Life only gets better when you keep learning to put yourself aside, choose to forgive, pray instead of argue and again i’m going to say it, trust God with everything.
(Darling, if you are reading this I want to tell you how thankful I am that you chose me. You have been the BESTEST thing that has ever happened to me. I don’t ever regret saying “yes”. I am so excited to be fifteen years into this journey with you and I KNOW that our BEST is yet to come. Thank you for choosing me, for putting up with me, for giving me five beautiful treasures, for literally giving me the life of my dreams. I love you so much sweetheart. Forever yours, Natashinka).
I heard a quote today “you don’t have to see eye to eye with someone to do life hand in hand with them” I thought that was so profound. Because honestly Kyle and I do not see eye to eye on A LOT of things (sometimes I feel like theres more that we don’t agree on then the things we do lol) We made a commitment to each other, a promise to do life together until the end. So no amount of not seeing things the same way is justification to go our separate ways. What we do is compromise and I always pray for the Lord to show me if I might be wrong or if I’m not, then for him to open his eyes so that we don’t have to keep coming back to this issue. More often then not things resolve and we come to an understanding. I just wanted to encourage you to hold on to hope, seek help and do not give up in your marriage. If you trust the Lord and press through the “hard” times the best is definitely yet to come. Trust me and please do get help if you feel overwhelmed or alone. Everyone goes through it, there’s no shame in reaching out.
The same idea can be applied to relationships with people from other walks of life, different denominations, cultures, or just in general those who’s views on life are different then our own. We should have a diversity in our acquaintances and even friendships with people that we might not see perfectly eye to eye with. There’s so much benefit to it, other than hiding away and being afraid of the differences. I had a few ladies tell me “God literally sent you to me as an answer to prayer” and then sometime later they see something that’s “different” about me or in my life then theirs and we no longer stay in touch. Not on my end but on theirs. People choose to be lead by fear rather then the “answered prayer” that they were so sure about just a while back. I see it happen around me so often it grieves my heart. Anyway I pray that we can all learn to not just tolerate one another but really pray for an open heart to people. Also that we could be so grounded in Jesus that no “outsiders” (those not in your circle of life) would be a threat to our faith or our relationship with the Lord. Jesus wasn’t so why should we be?
Avenue of the Oaks
Kyle and I got to visit Avenue of the Oaks. It was a beautiful place. We had a painting of this hanging in our second hotel room. I kept getting lost in it and longed to go to a place just like that. Then two days before we had to leave, I had a thought to look it up and see if it existed. To my surprise it did! Kyle had the next day off so we had a sitter (his helper from work which happened to be his brother lol) stay with the kids while we went out to explore!
Sad to think that it had once been a plantation and that slavery was once part of our country. But being there and seeing all that, made me realize how far we’ve come and how grateful I am that we are no longer living in those times. I am so thankful that our country has come so far. Now we have another fight on our hands but that’s for another entry.
I am currently sitting under the pier, waves crashing, a soft breeze blowing and I have all my children digging holes in the sand around me (we forgot ALL our sand toys at home) so we’re working with what we got (our hands Lol). I am still just as in awe of the goodness of the Lord this week as I was the other two from above. My mother isn’t with us this time so I decided to not be a tourist and to actually just vacation. Beach, pool and naps at the hotel that’s how we’re rolling this time around. Oh we also got a new hotel this week with a kitchenette, a fully working pool and it’s as close to the beach as the other one was! So no eating out, no activities, no stores or hustling around, my mind is clear and relaxed enough to write. God knows me best 🥰
I got in the water for about ten minutes before all the kids voted the we go spend our last day on vaca at the pool. Again we picked up all our belongings, I dragged my mat into the sun away from the shade of the pier and what do you know before the kids were even able to get all their shoes, another tide came up and would have soaked EVERYTHING if we had not had the timing just right! Isn't God amazing! Our beach neighbors did have their towels drenched and shoes swept away but my helpful kiddos fetched their stuff and notified them that the tide was coming up.
I absolutely fell in love with Charleston, the beauty and nature, all of it. Can’t wait to go back!
I came home refreshed, grateful and so content with the love of Jesus for me. He is so good. That break was just what I needed to get re energized for the school year ahead, for wrapping up my minimizing journey and for anything else the Lord has in store for us!
I don’t know about you but for us school starts this week, I’m excited because things are looking different for us this year then before, eek I can’t wait to see what we will think. Hmm why do I even think that? If God did it then I KNOW I will love it! Anyway…
I hope you had a wonderful summer, be it that you ventured out or had a refreshing time at home. If your kiddos are going back to school then I pray for a graceful transition back into routine.
Don’t forget, let Jesus in on your days, allow him to surprise you when you trust him wholeheartedly. I would love to hear your stories!
Blessings friend.
Natty
P.S I have been robbed of a lot of time due to sickness for the majority of this year. That is very unusual for me but I am so grateful for all that the Lord has been teaching me through it. My faith journey hasn’t been the easiest but it’s been so worth it! Let me know if you're interested on the topic and I’ll see if I can put into words what I’m going through and learning.