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 )