Making the Leap: Preparing your Family

So, you’re prepared emotionally to leave your job – it pains you to go to work every day and by now you’re convinced that anything would be better than your current role. You’re prepared financially – you feel like even if you took a big pay cut, you could make it work. You’re ready, right? Well, maybe. But is your family?

Like any parent, I was convinced the hardest part of making the leap from the corporate world to a ministry job would be the toll it would take on my family. For us, going to a lower-paying (albeit more rewarding and fulfilling job) was going to mean selling our house, leaving our neighbors, and moving to a new city (and school). My girls had just finished their 3rd and 1st grade years. Their teachers were incredible, and they loved their schools. Even more than that, my wife loved serving in the schools. Aye, aye, aye, this was going to be tough.

When we began talking and praying about selling our house, our intentions were to stay in the same school system. In fact, that was the only place we were really interested in looking. But, then reality hit… after four months with no one looking at our house for sale, a couple looked, made an offer, and bought it- and wanted us out in 23 days. We basically had one weekend to look for a house, or start looking for an apartment. The first day, we found the house we loved… the only problem? You guessed it – it was in another town, in another school district. A bigger school district. A district we had intentionally moved away from before our kids reached school age.

At first, every house we looked at, my girls would ask, “will we have to change schools if we move here?” If the answer was “yes,” then they weren’t interested… no matter what the house or neighborhood were like. But looking around this neighborhood, I sensed that we were being called there. I sensed that there were great people, great families – families with kids who were the same age as ours. And I was convinced. What I didn’t really know was how hard my wife was fighting against it. But, she agreed to pray, and what she prayed was this: “Lord, please send good friends for our girls.”

The second day we moved in, there were 9 kids playing in our backyard. I think that a couple of them were even ours. All of a sudden, the girls loved the house. They loved the neighborhood. And, over time, my wife has grown to love it, too. My wife and I were overwhelmed with the new friends coming into our yard and our house all through the day. “It’s your fault,” I said. “You prayed for this.”

Here’s what I learned from this experience… kids are resilient. They adapt well, especially when they’re young. We often transfer our feelings and fears onto them- we fear that they’ll miss their friends, they’ll hate their new school, etc. And, while they might be nervous at first, they’ll get past that. Maybe much easier than you will.

I’m so thankful that God did that work in our family. I’m thankful he stretched us, and made us move out of our comfort zone. I’m thankful he took us from a very nice, custom-built house in the woods to a not-quite-as-nice, smaller, production-built home on a small lot, but with great neighbors. It’s part of the work He wanted to do in me. I had the chance, for a time in my life, to live in a very nice, big, beautiful home. And through it all, we learned that a house is just a house. It doesn’t make you happy. It doesn’t solve problems. It doesn’t make your life any better or easier.

Yes, before I made the leap, God was preparing my family. Next: God (finally) prepared a place for me.