lifefromlemons – Page 2 – Life From Lemons

August 10, 2022August 11, 2022

Training Begins

Rielle on the bow sprit of sailboat “More Beyond” as we head back to the docks from an evening cruise.

Well we made it! We now have the RV and the crew here in Elizabeth City, North Carolina to train with Maritime Ministries (if you are in need of the back story on why we are here click here)

We left the Plant City area in late June, spent two weeks in Jacksonville and then headed eight more hours north to the Campus of Mid-Atlantic Christian University in Elizabeth City, NC. Here we have begun our training with Maritime Ministries.

Stopped in Wilson, NC to visit this cool park with windmill art sculptures

We took two days to make the 8 hr trek. Aaron drove the RV and i followed behind in my SUV.

Our parking spot next to the dorms. Although it’s not very shady, as an RVer, I’m loving the lack of dirt outside my front door. We are also just 150 feet from the docks

Although we have spent about four weeks here, we feel like we are just getting our feet wet (pun intended). The first week was more logistics and settling in and last week covid made its way through our family. Thankfully no one got it too bad. We don’t have any big news or updates, but we just wanted to share a little bit about what we have been able to do and experience here!

Dock Ministry

A big part of what MM does is offer a free place to stay on their docks for boaters passing through. Although the slow season for the docks, Aaron and I have had the opportunity to welcome in a handful of cruisers. It is always exciting to hear a new boater has arrived, as each person or family has their unique own story about where they’ve been, where they are going and how they ended up on the water. Most of the boaters are talkative and some have even been willing to share with us their burdens and struggles in life. We are learning how God can use us simply by our willingness to listen to a person’s story.

Aaron was disappointed when his first solo trip on the sailboat “More Beyond” was cut short by a broken impeller, but it was obvious God had a purpose in this challenge. It turned out that Kevin, who had arrived the day before on the docks, was a retired diesel mechanic. Not only was Kevin able to show Aaron how to repair the impeller, he also gave Aaron a through tutorial of the workings of “More Beyond’s” engine. Aaron and Kevin were able to talk late into the evening about the challenges of solo cruising, fatherhood, and navigating our faith during these challenging times. Kevin is one of hundreds of relationships MM has formed in the cruising community.

On the Water

We try our best to get out on the water as often as we can. Our main goal in being here is becoming a family capable of living aboard and sailing. Aaron is specifically focused on getting ”days” on the water (a ”day” is about 4 hours) in order to get his captains license. Although a captains license is not necessary to own or use “Selah,” it would allow us to be a greater asset to MM and give our guests more confidence in our ability to host them on the water

Aaron explains the depth finder to the crew

The kids on the bow sprit, their favorite place to be

“Can we jump out and swim yet?” Although we hoped NC would be cooler than FL, so far it’s just as hot. The kids are always anxious to swim. (Everett jumps off the boat into the river at sunset)

Aaron in the pink shorts on “Selah” the 47’ sailing vessel we hope to sail away in when our training period is over. MM currently uses her to take larger groups out on the water for times of ministry and refreshment.

Keeping The Kids Busy

Elizabeth City is a little over an hour away from the beaches on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Our second week here, we headed over to Kitty Hawk (think Wright Brothers). We were incredibly surprised by the massive sand dunes there!

Abel tracking across the dunes at sunset.

We have been entrusted with giving the ministries boats regular baths. I like to refer to this as “swabbing the deck“ in hopes that the kids will find this chore fun, but the kids don’t find the pirate lingo entertaining.

“Swab that deck ye maties” – insert pirate accent

The Kids favorite way to end the day is a good dunking in the Pasquotank river. This brackish body of water is a branch of the intercoastal waterway. It runs right past MACU campus and into downtown, connecting the Dismal Swamp to the Albemarle Sound.

Taking the dinghy across the river to our swim spot. The first few swims Abel preferred the safety of the boat to the ”scary” coffee-colored waters.

Abel and Everett like to double up on life jackets to duke it out.

Thanks so much for reading and following us on this journey. Please pray God gives us the comfort and encouragement we need to continue be salt and light here in Elizabeth City. God continues to bless us and make life from our lemons.

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Laura

May 13, 2022June 13, 2022

Hope Deferred

This New Years found both Aaron and I in an emotional low. In many ways it felt like we hadn’t progressed since last New Years. Still in the RV. Still not sure what’s next for us. Still unsure where “home” is. The housing market seemingly stacked against. I came across this proverb around the holidays, “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.” I strongly resonated with a ”heart sick“ and longed for the “tree of life.”

As I’ve mentioned before, the pandemic really just compounded a feeling of “lostness” that we had already been feeling. Up until five years ago our life together as a married couple had felt fairly typical, but God began to stir our hearts, to unsettle us spiritually. We wanted to give our lives to the Lord to use for his kingdom. We wanted to live missional. The only problem was we lacked a specific calling. Neither of us being very driven, we walked through the open ministries doors that we found around us, but a few years down the road and still nothing had really “clicked.”

Then Covid hit and the feeling of ”lostness” took on a whole new meaning, as it went from a purely spiritual state to a physical state as well.

But shortly after New Years, God began to stir our spirits again. He quietly began to whisper to my heart “change is coming.” Then, sometime around February, we were told about an organization called Maritime Ministries. Located near the Outter Banks in North Carolina, MM uses sailing and sailboats as a means for ministry. If you know Aaron well then you know of his long standing dream of using sailing for ministry. It’s been a dream that started in his twenties and one he’s pursued off and on over the years. When we called up MM to hear more about what they do, we had no idea what God was about to “wow” us with. A few conversations later and MM told us that they had been praying for a missions minded family to come use their underutilized 47’ sailboat, Selah, and they felt we were the answer to their prayer. ”Are you joking me?” is maybe the best summary of how we felt about that news. It felt to good to be true! It was so encouraging to start to think about how perfectly prepared we were for many aspects of this transition as God suddenly gave me new lenses through which to see my trials. Living in an RV for the last two years has been given a new purpose as the similarity between boat living and RV living are numerous. God doesn’t waste out trials or our time!

We have spent the last several months getting to know Maritime Ministries and its staff and partnering families better, and in March we got to spend a week up at their home base in NC and got to see Selah in person. As things have progressed with the ministry, God has given me and Aaron much peace about this ministry and the assurance that our meeting them was divinely ordained.

This summer we will spend 3-4 months training with Maritime Ministries in North Carolina. If all goes according to plan, we will take responsibility for Selah at the end of our training period and plan to live, at least part time, on her. Life still has so many unknowns for us and we are getting good at saying, ”that’s a great question, but I don’t know the answer“

But I am excited despite the unknowns. God has been filling my heart with joy as he reveals to me how he has been working all things for our good, according to his purpose the whole time, that He has been preparing us and refining us through our trials, not punishing us. For Aaron it is exciting because it feels like God is bringing his dream of ministry through sailing into fruition, and for me it is exciting because it feels like an answer to a prayer i started praying five years ago, “God, show us your plan for us.”

We are so encouraged to see that God has always been writting our story even when we felt lost. He heard all our prayers and remembered our dreams. He is making life from our lemons!

“A hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life”

As always thanks for reading!

Laura

( Find out more about Maritime Ministries here )

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August 27, 2021August 27, 2021

More RV Reno and “I Just Wanna Know”

O N E Y E A R

SOME PIC FROM OUR YEAR – RV RENO PICS AT BOTTOM

I JUST WANNA KNOW

Well we have completed one year of RV living, and since I have this blog, I feel compelled to write about it. I really wanted to make a cool video of all our pictures to share with you. This year has been full of highs and lows and of course I want to share the highs with you, but the project was too overwhelming. I even started to write out some of our best stories to share with everyone, but still, it just wasn’t working for me. So I prayed, “Lord, what sums up our year?” and this phrase instantly popped into my mind, “I just wanna know,” and since then it has been hard to get out. You see this whole year I kept telling God that I really could just enjoy this adventure better if he could just help me out on a few details, a few logistics. I mean, should I put my washer and dryer in storage? When will I need them again? Will we just be in the RV for a year or two, or more? I just need to know where to forward our mail to God. Should we renovate the RV to our families needs or should we think of it as an investment and renovate it to sell for a profit? Will the housing market go up or down, cause I keep getting mixed signals Lord! I just wanna know!!

Truthfully this phrase summaries more than this RV year. It sums up a whole season of my life that the pandemic compounded. I’ve longed for years to know what lies ahead, what the future holds. I’ve wanted adventure in life, but I’ve only ever wanted it with the guarantee that things will go the way I want, that the risk will be worth it. It’s tempting to believe that patience in the discomforts of today would be easier if I just knew how the story would go. I know my longings are not unique to full-time RV living or pandemic uncertainties. Everyone I know closely holds an “I just wanna know” question in their heart.

I just wanna know that my kids will turn out okay

I just wanna know that one day I will make a difference

I just wanna know if I can trust them

I just wanna know that one day I will be free of this

I just wanna know that I’m loved

I just wanna know one day life will feel “normal” again

The list is endless and burdensome and often changing and morphing as we go along in life. One “I just wanna know” is answered, just in time for us to need to know some other piece of information about our story. We long for certainty.

I hate to tell you that I have not discovered the secret to getting God to tell you how the cards fall. I have failed to find the magic 8 ball that reveals all we need to know and more! All I can say is that I have learned to stop asking God to give me the certainty I want. Of course the Bible is full of promises and certainties that we can hang our hats on, but truthfully, that often does not feel like enough for me. Why won’t you give me the details God? Wouldn’t life be easier if I just knew that this one thing would end up working out? God, I would sleep so much better at night if I could just know this one thing for certain.

But maybe he doesn’t give us the certainties we want because our trust would no longer be in him, but in our future. Maybe our biggest “I just wanna know” moments are the perfect chance to hold onto nothing but Him. To let Him, and the power of his resurrection be enough for today. When he keeps his future plans from us, we are forced to trust that he is good, that he is loving, that he is wise. After years of asking God to show me my future, I’ve decided to take the silence as a “No.”

“I’m sorry Laura, but you’ll just have to take life one day at a time” – God

I realized a while ago that so much of how we feel about life is based on how we perceive our futures, not on the realities of today. We spend most of our days in made up worlds in our heads. Worlds built on both our fears and our hopes. On good days we are day dreaming of what we want our lives, our futures to be and we feel good. And on bad days we are worried about gloomy futures that really don’t even need to come true to rob us of our joy, because they already have.

So instead of wishing I knew what was around the corner and worrying about what the future could hold, my new philosophy is to take life one step at a time. I’m not sure where we will be this time next year, but I’m pretty sure I know where I will be today and this week, so I keep my focus there. And as for tomorrow, well you guessed it, it “will worry about itself.” (Matthew 6:34)

In the uncertain moments in life, I find comfort in the old lyric, “it is well with my soul.” I don’t know how each chapter of my life will end, but I do know how my story ends. I do know the fate of my soul, my eternal destination. I have a heavenly home awaiting me. A place where I will no loner say, “I just wanna know” and that is the greatest comfort I can find, and the greatest comfort I can offer you! I hope you know the King and that knowing him brings peace to your weary hearts. I leave you with this verse, which is often salve to my soul when I just don’t know what to think…

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourself that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”
Jesus

BEDROOM AND HALLWAY BEFORE AND AFTER PICTURES

We are finally finished re-doing the interror of the RV yeah! It feels so amazing to finally be able to sit down at the end of the day and not see projects! But alas, I am already planning on when I can repaint the exterior of the RV! This bedroom and “hallway” reno was mostly new paint and new fabrics! Fun fact, the “wallpaper” in our bathroom sink area, is not wallpaper at all. I hand painted each and every one of those lines! …it took quite a bit longer than I thought it would, felt a little bit like a mad woman half way through! Also can you spot my daughters drawing of The Incredible Hulk she hung for her strong Daddy?

Thanks for stopping by! – Laura

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March 31, 2021March 31, 2021

In The “In between”

Last time I shared before and after pictures of our RV renovation. And although it was fun to share those picture with you, renovations are not fun to live though. Pictures that took you minuets to appreciate, took us months to create. I’ve never known as much stress as I have during our renovation. There is a picture from our renovation that I didn’t shared last time, it’s what I call the “in between” picture. A picture mid renovation where the wall paper had been removed and all the ugliness of our water leak damage was on display. I didn’t share the picture partially out of embarrassment. It just felt a little too ugly, a little too real at the time. As people in the renovation world know, things usually look worse before they look better.

The “In Between” picture – When things got real!

The good thing about a RV renovation though is that one day the project is over. Eventually you patch the walls up, pick out a paint color and hang your curtains and enjoy the “after.” The thing is though, I still find myself sitting in an “in between” stage. The life of a Christian is always in process, in progress; but these “in between” seasons are sometimes so hard to accept, so hard to rest in.

In lots of ways our lives have settled from the storm of Covid, we have somewhat settled back in our home city and my husband has been able to return full time to his previous career as a musician, but life still feels very, what I like to describe as “ewey gooey.” We still aren’t sure where we are headed in life. We are still living in our RV, very comfortably, but still, it doesn’t make one feel settled. I find it really hard when someone ask what our plan is or where we will live next to just say, “I don’t know.” The conversation feels awkward unless I follow it up with, “here are some possibilities,” or, “here’s some places we might go,” as if to justify my situation. But the best answer is still just “I don’t know.” We are in the waiting. Praying and seeking but still the forecast ahead just looks foggy. We are doing one of the hardest things for anyone to do, wait.

While driving down a back road a few months back, I spotted a little old shed and although I only glimpsed it for just a second, I knew instantly that I loved it, that I had to draw it!

I knew almost instantly that I would recreate it as a garden shed. I think gardening can teach us so much about life. Oh the analogies I could make about pruning or good soil, but recently I’ve been thinking about spring. Specifically early spring, before the baby plants poke out of the soil but after the seeds have been planted. That time when, if you are still a beginner gardener like me, you hope and pray that something is brewing beneath the surface, that you didn’t screw something up. Plants in this stage need time and water but there really isn’t much you can do but wait. Everything in culture has the appearance of happening so fast that sometimes we forget that things take time, that renovations take time, that people take time. Sometimes its ok to wait and see what the Lord will bring about. Because I am confident that he is always at work in his children’s lives, even when on the surface it seem like time is wasting away.

I’m confident that one day God will give me the “after” picture of this season for our family. I hope and pray that at any moment we will see the new plants break free from beneath the soil and we will praise God for his goodness, for his wisdom to unroot the old plants, till the soil and replant on our behalf, knowing that we needed new plants, even if we didn’t want them. One day I hope to fully know the purpose of all life’s difficult seasons and to say, “now I see what you were planting there Lord!”

Slowly I am realizing though that life on earth is all one big “in between.” One issue is resolved, one “after” picture is taken, just to have God reach for the his gardening tools again and say “now let’s work on this section of your garden.” Half way through working on this drawing I scribbled “heaven” in the corner. I imagined that if this shed could be brought to my backyard in heaven, this is what it would look like. The more I live, the more I find myself longing for heaven, when we will wait no more. Until then, I am learning patience. As one country song puts it “the longer the waiting the sweeter the kiss”*

“…do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”**

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*Josh Turner’s “The Longer the Waiting”

**2 Corinthians 4:16-17

January 19, 2021January 20, 2021

RV Reno – Contrast

The concept of contrast has been a topic i’ve pondered over many times in my life. As an artist contrast is everything. You can’t make a picture without a black line to stand in defiance against a white background. As an art student, you are told that the more contrast a drawing has, the more it will stand out from other drawings. When I thought I was all done with a drawing my teacher would say, “Now go back and make your highlights even brighter and your shadows even darker.”

I can’t help but think about how these lessons in art relate to life. Contrast not only makes for a good picture but also for a good life story. We love to hear about a person who has over come a dark valley to stand in the light shining on the mountain top. We don’t like to see a man kicked down but we find joy in the news that he got back up, more joy than in the man who stood all the while. No one makes movies about the man who always stands, no one remembers him.

But alas, to be the man who has fallen down. To stand in the valley and not see the light or to wonder if we will ever see the light this side of heaven. We all know the movies will have a happy ending, but sometimes for us we are not so sure.

This year has been a valley for our family. Like many many others this pandemic has taken our lives from plan A to plan B, C, D, only to eventually land on plan Q. At the start of 2020 my husband and I were looking to buy our first house. With my husband being self-employed, this was a big deal for us, but when we both lost our jobs to the pandemic we were left to do our best to make lemonade from our lemons. It would take me a few months after we settled into our plan Q to admit to myself how disappointed I was that we could no longer buy a house. Even though it feels petty to say, because I knew people would lose their life to this thing, I often found myself angry at how much the pandemic had taken from me. As ugly or ungrateful as my emotions may have been. I knew the need to be honest with myself that I was upset.

So what does this all have to do with before and after pictures of your RV your asking by now. I want to share with you the contrast of my RV reno, and I hope in a small way it brings you joy. But I was hesitant to share these pictures at times because it adds to the “Hey look at me I posted a cool picture” world we live in, which leaves many of us feeling jealous, left out, or less than.

This is just one contrast of many in my life. One way that God has given me some light in my dark valley. But in other areas of my life I, probably like you, am still in the valley. Waiting on God’s timing to lift me up. I don’t claim to have the strength to rise again, but I live daily by God’s grace. I hang on to my mustard seed of faith and say, “I believe you are good and totally in control God, but help my unbelief!” May my valleys be used to show how great a God I serve!

I’ll close with lyrics from a song by Hillsong (dont worry more RV reno pictures below)

“In the crushing, In the pressing, you are making new wine, In the soil, I now surrender, You are breaking new ground”

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Kitchen Tidbits – Although I told myself I would take good before pictures as soon as we bought the RV, I failed. The one picture below was the only true “before” picture I took. The kitchen photo above was half renovated before I took this picture. At this point I had already painted over all the wall paper and laid new flooring.

This picture was taken the day we moved full-time into our RV, as you can tell from the picture the weather was rainy which delayed our departure. The window coverings in this thing drove me crazy and didn’t even last 24 hours before I got my screwdriver and took them down. Even fully drawn, the original shades covered a good 6 inches of the window. I need me some sun shine!

My curtains we originally white, but then I remember I had three kids…so I painted my white curtains in the design you see above. It was bit of a risk but I loved the end result!

I also reupholstered the couch (which may or may not be held together mostly with hot glue…but hey 6 months in and we are holding strong!) I chose what I have discovered to be the most ideal couch fabric for kids – Faux leather vinyl! This wonderful stuff doesn’t absorb any liquids your kids may spill (or pee) on it!

The faux ship lap wall behind our dining table was actually my husband’s idea. We did not set out to rip out the original banquet but after discovering an active water leak behind the built in benches we came up with this design. My husband also build these benches and found this table for us for only $38 at an antique mall! I hate to admit it, but sometimes his ideas are better than mine!

the end! Go find your own contrast!

-Laura