So how do you like Iowa??

I'm so behind on blogging again. Sorry! I am going to attempt to remedy that with the next several posts.

April was a difficult month for me and that is why the blogging stopped. As the one year anniversary of our move approached, I really began to struggle with homesickness. It is not something that I was aware of at first. In fact, I didn't even realize why I was was feeling so down. People are always asking if I like it here and if it feels like home. I always respond that I haven't been here long enough to truly answer that question and I brush it aside. To be truthful, I say that because I really just don't want to think about it. But as the one year anniversary approached, I did begin to think about that question. Things aren't like I had hoped they would be by this point. I really don't fit in here and I feel like I stand out in pretty much every area of my life here. Church life isn't what I thought it would be like. Our CC group wasn't what I thought it would be like. Farm life isn't what I thought it would be like. But God is using it all to refine me. He is faithful to meet me at my need as I reach out to him. He even told me one day that he understood homesickness. Jesus had to leave the home he loved to come to this sin filled world and he didn't fit in and no one he met understood him. He knows what I am going through. Only for me, I didn't leave a perfect home and have to suddenly deal with being around sin, so it must have been even harder for him. No, it doesn't feel like home yet. But I lived in Virginia for a really long time and I had only been here 11 months at that time. It takes time to put down new roots. It's not a bad thing that it doesn't feel like home. This world is not my home anyhow, right? As I am allowing the Lord to refine me, I am finding a supernatural sense of peace. I say supernatural because I know it's not from me. Despite the challenges and unmet expectations, I am content here. I am not praying to leave and I am finding ways to be happy here. We are making memories and living abundant lives as best we can. So life is hard and it is different here. I miss VA and the ocean and the mountains and racial diversity and my family and my friends terribly, but it's also good and I'm fine with my life here. Does that make sense? Apart from the Lord, it really doesn't. But since God is here with me, it all doesn't have to make sense in order for me to experience joy and to have peace in the midst of pain. I know we are supposed to be here, so I will embrace being here with my whole heart and I will live the abundant life that Christ died to give me, no matter where that takes place. God has work for me to do here and work that He wants to do in me through being here. I look forward to seeing how that all plays out. And since I have this blog, you get to come with me on that journey. :)