FL or NH?

Since I enjoy FL so much, why ever did we move to NH? Some may have heard all this before but here it is for the record! And perhaps some facts will surface which are little known to many.

After we got married in 1973 we moved to Tampa, FL to our "own" little cottage on Highland Ave where I created our first home and we assisted Mr. and Mrs. Hardy with the ministry of the FL church. In 1975 on July 4th, we moved to Quail Hollow--to the brand new grand parsonage where Neil and I took responsibility for the place and began running a guest hotel. I thoroughly enjoyed it--cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. etc. and being a Mom to Kendra, Chad and then Craig. Mr. and Mrs. Hardy moved out from Tampa to live with us after a couple of years and that presented its challenges, but still life was good and I was happy!

Sometime in 1982 I think it was, Neil began voicing wonderments about how maybe God might want him to teach. Teach?? He was doing plenty of teaching right at Quail Hollow Chapel, having been ordained as a minister in 1978 and taken over as senior pastor at that time. But he said he thought maybe he was supposed to teach at the Bible School. Shudder, shudder, shudder!! It was a thought I had difficulty even contemplating. Move up north where it was cold, where there were endless people to gaze at my child rearing abilities or lack of them, where the only shopping I would ever get to do would be in the Fairwood storeroom? and on and on and on.

And then one day on the phone, a well meaning friend, (wife of another pastor) asked me how I felt about our move to Fairwood. WHAT?? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Apparently there had been some serious talk at a pastor's meeting about the actuality of such a move, but no one was supposed to say anything about it to their wives because Neil had not yet finalized it with me.

At this point I became angry--very angry. Angry at Neil, angry at the men up north who felt they could arrange and re-arrange our personal lives like moving chessmen on a chess board, just plain ANGRY! But God didn't leave me in that horrific position for too, too long. I can't remember how long I floundered, and cried and sought God, but He finally did meet me through the words of #265 in the Warrior Songbook. Specifically:

"When thou art leading where my soul would shrink to go,
Dear Holy Spirit, let me not say no.
Cause me then dear Spirit, spite of suffering it may bring,
Thou who art so tender, strengthen me to sing."

Aha! So you are the One WHo is leading, Holy Spirit? Okay, then it will be all right. So it was on to the transition period with Tad and June, the packing, the leaving, and through it all, even though I had a deep sadness in my heart, I knew that it was going to be okay.

Up in NH I think all my fears were realized and I began the long process (still going on!) of dying to myself. Having more children seemed impossible. For about six years I gave up my husband to the "program" as he implemented new procedures, plans, ideas into the Bible School program. He ran the sports 3 nights a week, held evening classes and threw himself into mentoring, etc. etc. with great fervor. In fact, he became the "Idea Man" and I used to joke that as often as he turned over in bed a new idea would roll out. We sought to have a family night one night a week so that the children could have some quality time with him, but sometimes that worked, sometimes not. I learned that the children could go to bed without Neil in the house to spend time and play with them and that I didn't die while performing this duty by myself more often than not.

There were many, many other chapters along the way, but in 1989 God led us to begin homeschooling our children. God gave Neil the verse in Hebrews about preparing an ark of safety and likened homeschooling to being that ark for our family. And indeed it has proved to be so. In the program we use, the father is encouraged to spend at least a half hour of quality time/day with the children and from the very beginning, Neil committed to doing that. Now, 18 years later he is still doing that with our last child. Does he ever miss? Absolutely! Lots of times! But it is still a "given" and has brought life to our family.

Lest you might think that living in NH has been all hard for me, I assure you that the opposite is true. God has poured out His love and blessing upon us and our family and I am full of praise to Him that our children have had such a safe and happy environment in which to develop. They have loved every minute of living at Fairwood--from Kendra right on down through Kayla! They have thrived on the freedom and fellowship and will sing its praises loudly to any who ask.

Soooo, God is good, He knows what is best for all of us, where we should be, where we should live, who we should marry, who we should not marry, how we should be serving Him. All we have to do is to yield and follow. Even if it seems hard sometimes, if He is the One Who is calling and leading, things will always turn out right and we will experience true happiness. I certainly have.