Tag Archives: Atlanta GA

Now What? When life is uncertain but God isn’t!

Now What? When life is uncertain but God isn’t!

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It’s that time of year when all the college students who are about to graduate are sitting around wondering if all the education and loans they have accumulated over the last 4-8 yrs have been worth it? At least that is what my daughter, is feeling as she is about to graduate, with a BFA in Graphic Design and a minor in Film and Digital Media. 

We have all had times like this haven’t we? Okay, maybe we haven’t been to school and accumulated loans and taken all this time to learn something that we’re afraid we may never get to use. But we all have been at a place of uncertainty. Maybe it’s uncertainty about your health? Maybe it’s uncertainty of how much the farm will make this year? Maybe it’s uncertainty of what will happen to our children or grandchildren? I am sure if you think about it, you can remember a time you were living in uncertainty, maybe you are even living in it now?

I remember when Jeff and I were at that place many years ago,  by saying that I don’t mean ,to sound like it has only happened to us once,  by any means. But this one particular time, before Amy was even born and before Jeff was in full-time ministry,  we were at a crossroads in life a place of uncertainty of what we should do next.

Jeff was looking for a job and there were none to be found in Alabama where we lived at the time. We were at a place we knew we needed a new start and so we thought Atlanta GA. would be a good option for us. At least we knew there were plenty of jobs available there.

So, Jeff picked up the Atlanta Journal Constitution Newspaper and began searching through the want ads. He found several jobs that met his HVAC experience and he applied. We prayed and we prayed hard for God to give Jeff a job. When Jeff finally got a call back from one of the owners for an interview Jeff was eventually hired. After working there for a bit, the owner told Jeff that he had been the only applicant to apply for the job.

Now, at the time Atlanta had 2.5million people in it. So the chances of Jeff being the only person to apply for a job was literally a miracle. Whether he blinded the peoples eyes to see that ad back then, or if he made it disappear for everyone else in Atlanta and the surroundings areas that took that paper. Because this paper did not only serve the 2.5 million people that live in Atlanta but at the time, this paper was delivered all over the state of Georgia and part of Alabama and Florida. Perhaps even further. When I think of the prayers we were praying at that time, asking God to open the right doors for us to walk through little did we know. God would go to such extreme measures to protect us and guide us.

You know I am reminded of a story in the bible where God protected Daniel. He was in the lion’s den. He had been thrown in there because he had stood up for what he believed and God closed the lion’s mouths so tight they didn’t eat Daniel. God protected Daniel that day. God watched over him. God provided a miracle for Daniel and kept him from harm.

I believe God still performs miracles today. I believe if we are following Him and trusting in and relying on God, he will be faithful to protect and provide for us. I know that is what God did that day for Jeff and I. 

There is no humanly way possible that Jeff was the only one that could of applied,  unless God had closed the eyes to everyone else to see that ad.

Time and time again, if we will only look we will see God’s hand in our lives. We don’t have to live in uncertainty,  because we know we serve a God that sees us and loves us with an everlasting love.

So no matter what the future holds, no matter if we don’t know what is ahead of us in life. We have to remember what we do know, and we do know that God knows all, He is watching over us and will take care of us,  if we will only ask, just like he did Daniel and Jeff.

God doesn’t leave His children hanging, He doesn’t leave His children alone. He loves us and if we are following after Him He will guide and protect us. So when those times of uncertainty and anxiety try to overwhelm us, what we have to remember is,  we serve a God that never fails, that can close the mouth of the lions, or blind the eyes of everyone else. He is watching over you, the question is will you trust Him?

I Came Kicking and Screaming All The Way To Kansas

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We were living in Atlanta at the time and marrying a southern man I never expected to live anywhere else but the south until, that infamous phone call came. It was so long ago, telephones hung on your wall.   We call them landlines now, and if you lived back then, you might have had one in several rooms of your home. We had one in the front of the house in the kitchen and another in the back of the house in a bedroom. My parents had two as well in there home where they lived in Kansas.

One day my parents and Jeff and I were having what we would now call a conference call when each of us just got on one of those phones connected to the wall in our home and we all talked to each other.  In the process of the call my parents once again invited us, or maybe it would be better described as begged us to move up to Kansas where they had retired. Being raised an only child and now having the only grandchild, my parents were desperate for us to move closer to them. But I was confident that was never going to happen. I knew our fate was destined to stay in the big city. I was completely okay with that because I had been to Kansas (as my grandparents and extended family lived there) and there was nothing there I wanted.

Once again my parents were asking, but I was convinced that I would, as my parents had, live so far away from my family that we would simply only see each other once or twice a year. Until, Jeff told my parents “Well, I tell you what, if you find me a job up there we will move” I didn’t say anything while we were talking to them on the phone, but as soon as we got off I asked Jeff “You were just pacifying my parents right? We aren’t moving to Kansas, are we? To which Jeff responded ” Yep! We’re moving!” I immediately reminded him that Kansas was in the North and we lived in the South. Because I was certain he had lost his mind for a moment.  In my attempt to bring him back to reality I reminded him of all the reasons why we would need to stay in Atlanta, before moving back to the forgotten world of this place they called Kansas.

Finally, after much aggravation on my part, Jeff just said ” I feel like God wants us to move to Kansas” Well, Now I was confident not only had my husband lost his mind but so had God. Because this was not in my plan and if you looked at our bank account, as I informed my husband, there wasn’t enough money for us to get down the road, let alone move from Atlanta GA to Kansas. Jeff assured me he believed this is what we were supposed to do.  Still, in disbelief, I informed Jeff. Okay, I will go but only if God provides the money and you know it will take at least $2,000 to move. Confident that I would not have to worry about it happening because it was such an outrageous idea,  (now I wish I would have said $10,000) I am certain God was sitting up there saying  “Oh! ye of little faith” because in 2 weeks we were pulling up in a U-haul to my parent’s driveway. Miraculously, in that time God provided the money and we moved. (and that is another story)

See none of that was in my plan, and even after God proved himself by providing the money for us to move, I was still in doubt and confused as to why God was taking us to Kansas. Frankly, I did not want to move here even though it is my birthplace. But God began to uncover His plan for us just 6 weeks later. When my mother, in the middle of the night, called out to us from my parent’s bedroom as we slept in the next room ” Alesa, Jeff come quick your daddy is dying” As Jeff and I raced to my daddy’s side.  I got to experience something I had prayed for. You see many years earlier I had prayed ” God,  Please don’t let me by like my parents and live so far away that when one of them is dying we have to hurry and drive thousands of miles away just praying we get there in time.”

As Jeff and I talked after daddy’s death. He revealed to me that while he was working in Atlanta one day. He was under a house and felt like God had said ” If you want Alesa and Lee to spend any more time with her family, you need to move to Kansas and you need to move to Kansas now ” Jeff said he knew that something was gonna happen and he wanted to make sure I was with my family. There was just something about what he felt God was saying that Jeff knew we had to move. Jeff didn’t know the prayer I had prayed. But God did!

Last week I shared in this article, about how circumstances that come into our lives, might not be what we expect or even want but we can trust the one who brings them to us.  Just like Joseph did as he told his brothers that God used the bad things they did, for good.  (Gen 30) I can look back now and see what God was doing, and how my dream that Jeff and I being the original Chip and Joanna Gains was not in His plan! He had a greater calling for us. Kansas is where our ministry began, Kansas is where the miracle of last 2 children came, and for the past almost 30 years we have loved and lived in Kansas.

Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us that God said ” I know the plans I have for you” notice that word plan is plural. My daughter reminded me of that the other day. So that means God has multiple plans for us to do. If Jeff hadn’t listened to God or worst yet if he had listened to me and we had stayed in the south. I am not sure what would have happened, but I am confident of one thing, our lives would not be the same,  we would not have been touched by the special people we have met here in Kansas and I hope somehow we have touched peoples lives here as well. I am so glad we can trust God’s plans for us. As we enter into 2018 let us resolve that we will trust His plan even when we don’t understand it and especially when we dislike it!