Having enjoyed 29 years of a rich spiritual heritage at Sovereign Grace Church in Joppa, MD, and also the blessing of living within five minutes of every extended family member on both sides of the family; my husband, four children and I left it all in the fall 2007 to go to Akron, OH where my husband now serves as the senior pastor of Covenant of Grace Church. My name is Laurie Reyes and this is my relocation story – the good, the bad, and yes, of course, the ugly.
Once Upon A Time?
I really don’t know where to begin my story of relocating. Do I start with the time my husband, Jason came home from work and showed me what would end up being a life-altering email from Dave Harvey? Do I start with the conversation with my parents at Red Lobster when my mom sat beside my dad (senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Church and therefore Jason’s boss), brave but pale-faced as they told us we were beginning the process of sending Jason out from Sovereign Grace Church to serve as senior pastor in another location? Do I start with that very cold February weekend in Akron when we visited Covenant of Grace Church for the first time?
I don't know where to start, but I do know the theme of anything I write on relocating is that through the excitement and the fears, through the lessons and the losses, through the victories and the defeats, God has been so faithful. I marvel when I consider His faithfulness, patience, grace, mercy and compassion through this experience. He has sent us, and in the process, He is revealing Himself to us in a way that I will never capture in writing. What I can try to capture is my own experience so far. This isn’t a how-to. It’s just how it’s happening to me.
Phase 1: Where you go I will go, but…
I’m a romantic. Not so much in the candles, roses, and soft music sense, but in the idealization of myself and unknown circumstances sense. I think back to our wedding day when I, the starry eyed bride, gazed into my groom’s eyes and vowed to him that I would go where he went. As a young couple we had dreamed together of being part of a church plant someday, and in that romantic moment in time I thrilled at the idea of being with Jason on an adventure to some unknown land. I would be brave and enthusiastic, a modern pioneer woman.
When the discussion over Jason leading a church in Ohio began, I can honestly say that God gave grace and faith to be willing to “go”. But I soon found that being willing to go and going are different things. Being willing to go means a meaningful conversation at Starbucks with my husband, seeing and hearing his dreams and vision for a new chapter in ministry, and sincerely wanting to be a part of making him a success – then telling him that anywhere he is, is home. Going means getting a house on the market which means being ready to show it at any moment while trying to homeschool four children. Going means packing a family of six and all of their accompanying stuff. Going means heart wrenching goodbyes and painful “last times”. Going means finding a new home to live in. Going means starting all over in so many ways. Going isn’t what that starry eyed bride pictured when she said, “where you go…” And I certainly wasn’t the brave adventurer I fantasized myself to be. But while I never factored in the hard realities of relocating, I also never factored in the astounding grace that would be most evident, not in my brave willingness to leave everything behind (though that is a huge act of grace, believe me), but in my weakness. Under my faltering steps of following my husband, I found the firm path of God’s grace. Where I slipped into worry over our future, God reminded me of His faithfulness in the past. Where I made life harder for Jason through grumbling or complaining, there was sweet relief in my Savior who perfectly obeyed without grumbling or complaining. When I was struggling with the pain of leaving ones I love so much, God reminded me that the pain was evidence of the goodness of His gifts to me in relationships and new gifts awaited me in a new place. The dreamy notions of “where you go…” proved to be nowhere near the difficult reality of those words. But the grace to “go” proved to be far more profound than any dreamy notions.
Phase 2: The Journey has its own destination
God gave Jason wisdom early on that there were special lessons the Lord wanted to teach us that would be unique to the actual process of moving. It was such a temptation to just want to survive that uncomfortable season of suspension between two places, but God faithfully used that time to reveal things about us and more importantly things about Him.
The overarching lesson we were learning was to put our trust in God, not in circumstances or people or ourselves. This is a lesson we will learn for the rest of our lives, but there was something uniquely intense about it during the time before we actually moved. A constant tutor for me was worry, fear, and anxiety. I would lay awake at night in a cold sweat sometimes thinking thoughts like, Is this God’s will? Can Jason do this whole senior pastor thing? Will our house ever sell? Will my kids be traumatized? What will I do without my family? Will the church in Maryland understand? How will the church in Ohio receive us? I call worry, fear, and anxiety my tutor because it was teaching me where I was functionally placing my hope and peace. Often it was in Jason, my family, favorable circumstances, the favor of man, and even an assurance of future success. And I was learning where I wasn’t placing my hope: in the all-powerful, all-wise, and yet ever compassionate Savior. All of my usual more subtle unbelief was magnified during this time. It was impossible to excuse or ignore. God mercifully convicted me, faithfully forgave me, graciously gave me new opportunities to demonstrate faith, and patiently repeated this pattern over and over often in the same day.
Phase 3: Sacred Ordinary
The whirlwind of directing furniture and boxes to their appropriate places had settled down. The necessary-for-life-boxes had been unpacked. The kids were sleeping in their new bedrooms. Jason and I were putting sheets on our bed saying what we still say sometimes two years later, “can you believe we’re here? We live in Ohio.” So much unknown. I didn’t know where I would do my grocery shopping; where the library was; where we would have date nights. Everything was different. But in His kindness, God used an unexpected source to comfort my soul in those earliest days of relocating. That comfort I now call my sacred ordinary.
It was a comfort to wake up in my new home, walk downstairs, brew the coffee, read my Bible, make breakfast for the kids, and put on a load of laundry just as I had for hundreds of mornings before. Those things that I have complained about so many times – the redundancy of housework, the hard work of homeschooling, the meal planning and preparation – were a comforting, steady rhythm in the midst of so much change. They were God’s very tangible means of comfort to my soul.
