I feel a bit like Noah...

So, we are packing. We don't have anywhere to live, and yet we are packing.

Crazy? Foolish? Reckless?

It feels all of those things and more. Yet we're not the first to feel that God has spoken, acted on it and then had to wait.

In the Bible, there's a story in the Old Testament that many of you will be familiar with, whether you are a Christian or not. It's about a guy called Noah. God told him not only to build an ark, but also to gather every kind of animal. He then told him to wait for the rain to come. Imagine for a moment how Noah must have felt. I'm sure his friends, neighbours and onlookers were laughing, scoffing, maybe even telling him that he was being crazy, foolish and reckless. Imagine how he felt when the ark was built, the animals were on board and there was no rain? Now God told Noah that the rain would come after 7 days - do you think Noah doubted or trusted? I think he may have done both during those 7 days!

And I feel a bit like Noah.

We feel that God has spoken to us about moving to Camden this Summer. I feel like we've acted on that and now we are 'waiting for the rain' or a house in our case. And I flit between doubting and trusting. And I know how it sounds and looks, believe me.

So we are packing our house up. We have taken the pictures down from the walls, ornaments wrapped and boxed, emptied kitchen cupboards, decluttered and packed up the loft, packed half of Jemimah's toys, dismantled an Ikea unit...you get the picture. And all the time we are doing this, I am saying to God; 'Seriously, if I have to unpack these flippin' boxes back again in this house...God, you have to come through for us on this!'

And I am reminding God of all that He has said and all that He has promised us. And God is still speaking. In a previous blog post, called 'Hearing God's voice', I listed some of the ways in which God has used other people to speak to us. In the last couple of weeks alone, we have been given 6 different words, pictures, encouragements from different people, even from different countries! And it's hard, it really is. I have never known a period of time in my life when God has been speaking so clearly, so often and to such a broad spectrum of people about our lives! And yet, no house!! It's so incredibly frustrating.

It's frustrating because we're desperate to be in London. Eli was chatting to me about it the other evening and said; 'Mum, I am just so desperate to have a house in London now.' And that's the general consensus from all 5 of us...waiting makes us desperate. We're ready to go, ready to move, ready to drop everything and do it. Jemimah was playing in the park yesterday and met a friend from school there. 'See you back at school' the friend called as she left the park. 'No you won't,' replies Jemimah, 'I'll be in London!'

And the 'what if's' are MASSIVE. What if we don't move? What if we've got it wrong? What if God doesn't provide a house in the next 11 days before school starts? And so on, and so on.

But my God is a good, good Father. And despite all of my (daily) wobbles, I trust Him. Even if the outcome is different to what I want. I am reminded of when I was 25 years old and I lost a baby. I was 13 weeks pregnant and went to the scan only to discover that my baby's heartbeat had stopped beating. I was devastated. Losing a baby was hard enough in and of itself, but it came exactly 11 months after a difficult period in my previous marriage. It was messy. I remember doubting God for the first time in my life and I remember the place I came to with it. No matter what my circumstances, no matter whether my baby had lived or died, no matter how I was treated by others, God was still who He said He was and would still do all that He said He would do. Whether we get a house or not, it will be so very hard, but it won't change who God is and his immeasurable love for me. It won't change the fact that Jesus died on the cross for me, so that I could be forgiven for all of my sin. It won't change the fact that there is a hope for each one of us to be 'made whole' by having a relationship with Jesus.