life from lemons – Life From Lemons

January 17, 2025January 18, 2025

1,000 Miracles – January 2025

About six weeks behind our latest timeline and two years behind our original timeline, Selah is finally done! A week before Christmas, we moved aboard and early this week, in the wee hours of the morning, Aaron and Captain Dan, left our home port of Elizabeth City, NC aboard Selah and started a long journey southbound.

A video of our “finished” boat below (as many already know, a boat is never truly finished)

The emotions I’ve experienced these last few weeks are unusual to me. Not ones I often feel. “Surreal” is really the best word for it all. For two years it felt like there was a giant mountain in front of us and more times than not, the thought of having to climb it was overwhelming. And then, almost as if overnight, we came to find we were standing on top of it! It feels unbelievable that we actually made it! It doesn’t seem to calculate, all those small steps and days of work, don’t really seem like they would equal this beautiful, functional boat we now live in. I feel like a proud mama who’s just given birth (without an epidural) or maybe this is what it feels like to win an Oscar (there are so many people that I would like to thank.)

I think it feels surreal because of the supernatural element of it all. The logistics and finances that have worked out to make it here are worth marveling at. What lies before my eyes today, is the culmination, I believe, of a 1,000 miracles. No single one significant alone to impress, but the consistency with which they appeared, for me, has been the proof that God has been working with us too.

Each miracle often connected to a person. A person who brought a tool, a supply, an encouraging word. Some people gave money, some gave their time, others their knowledge. Some came to help for an afternoon and others came weekly. Some were strangers who remained strangers. Many have become friends, and a few were old friends, who have been around long enough to hear Aaron talk of dreams of sailboats and ministry for over 20 years now.

I am super excited to live out these next few months, slowly moving south aboard our boat as a family. I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited and yet scared. I’ve talked to enough boaters at this point to know sailboat life is a lot of work. I am nervous for the trials I know will come, but I’m equally as excited to see why God has had us walk this path these last two years. I must believe that these last two years are just the beginning of a new chapter for the Koerner family.

THE BOATS DONE, NOW WHAT?

Even though we have been at this for over two years now, we still see ourselves as “in training.” We have learned so much about building and maintaining a sailboat, but there is yet another list of things to learn and experience that can only be done by living aboard a moving boat. In about a week, the kids and I will meet up with Aaron and Selah and take Dan’s place as crew aboard the boat and continue to head south via the Intracoastal Waterway. This initial winter and spiring season, we plan to be on the move a good bit. We have many friends and some churches we would like to connect with in Florida, and we anticipate many divine appointments with people in need of the love of Jesus along the way. We hope to round the tip of Florida and make it up the Gulf Coast of Florida to the Tampa area and maybe even cross the Gulf Stream and spend a few weeks in the Bahamas if things go according to plan. But just getting the boat off the local ministry docks already feels like a major win. When the spring comes to an end, we plan to head back up to Elizabeth City for hurricane season. We are already excited at the thought of being back in this small city with a fully functional boat.

Our goal for the next two years will be to gain lots of on the water experience as a family while being in tune to the leading of the Holy Spirit to minister to those in and out of the boating community. Beyond that, Aaron still has a heart to be able to disciple and encourage young men through on the water experiences. Even further beyond that, we are already aware of needs for sailors and sailboats to reach the lost on islands communities mostly in the Pacific Ocean. But as continues to be our story, it’s all in the hands of the Lord, and all one step at a time.

As always, thanks for reading and following along. Feel free to reach out to learn more or if you’d like to be apart of our support group and get more updates or hear about more real time prayer needs.

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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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And if you haven’t seen the after pictures of our RV renovation click here.

Or click here to see more lemons artwork and to purchase the “Garden Shed” print

*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