June 29, 2026

At the beginning of June, a friend of mine invited us to church. She's a great friend and I'd heard so many wonderful things about her small, hometown church over the last few years. I had even went before to a "singing" they had a couple years back. 

Only maybe a handful of people knew this, but I'd been praying one of those long prayers--the kind you pray when it almost seems futile to do so--but you do it anyway because you believe the Word and you know what God is capable of. Well sir, my long prayer involved my husband. I am not going to get into the details of why this prayer was prayed. That's really not important. What's worth mentioning though, is that I took myself out of the equation.  See, I knew that God was gonna have to do it, in order for it to get done the right way. 

I say that, because as a stubborn, southern woman who is quite feminist, I have a tendency to do and say whatever I want. You can't tell me nothing that I haven't already thought through thoroughly. I would like to think my husband adores this about me, however, I don't think that's actually true. See, he is also equally stubborn and southern and when we go head-to-head, sparks fly, and not the romantic type but in the all-out and passionate war-like way. We are equal parts fire and ice, and that is not always the best way to go about things of importance. Being that I am my way and he is his, some forms of persuasion do not work. No, I knew that in this instance, no amount of nagging due to my utter impatience was going to remedy our current situation. It was gonna have to come from God, and it was gonna have to be my husband that heard the utterance. 

I think a lot of times, we nag because we want things to look a certain way so that we can say--or pretend rather--that our lives are just what we make them out to be. That all the husband/wife relationships are cookie-cutter-Christian and portray a united front, when in fact, we aren't so united. For my husband and I, we have not been united on the church-front. Christian-front, yes; absolutely. Church-front? Nope. 

I had felt for sometime that I was called to serve. He felt like serving again was gonna be stupid and it was gonna end that way too. Once again, I will not get into semantics. The point is, we've been going to the same place for several years now, and it has been good, all on-line, but good. The running joke was that "I didn't have to put a bra on to go to church," and it was true. It was nice not rushing around like chickens with our heads cut off, everybody ticked off before church service, pretending we were just the perfect, little, well-behaved bunch. We ate breakfast together. We had slow mornings in front of the big screen. It was quiet. It was peaceful and a far cry from what it was before we found TC. 

But TC is in Indian Land and we are on the other side of Buford. The drive was 45-minutes both ways. I felt this ache in my soul for community, but TC's community was again, 45-minutes away from my own. We had our co-op and I would tell myself that it was enough, but again, even though we were spread out and I do have some close to me, our co-op is centrally located 20-minutes south of here. The call to community right here, off Taxahaw was significant. 

But I kept quiet, because it wasn't up to me and what better way to listen to the Holy Spirit, than to let Him cook. Let Him have His way. Not mine. That's the part about the whole Christianity thing that nobody wants to talk about--the surrendering--the giving away our own desires for what He has in store. 

TC was easy-peasy. It was good and it still is. It gave us something we needed at the time we needed it; a sense of rest and peace, but honestly, in the last year, to me, it has felt too easy. It has felt too much like a place I could go and hide from the calling the Lord placed on my life 13-years ago--a nudging that I had confided in less than a handful of people about two years after that, that I also had run full-speed away from since 2016, when it felt like we had been playing catch up ever since with one life-altering thing after the next.

From shocking losses to trial after trial after trial after trial. Still, I kept quiet, because God's timing is not my own. I will admit, I tried a few years in-between to go about it in my own way, but this last year, I've felt strongly that we needed to get plugged in somewhere in our community. We need to get connected to the heart of Christ. To weep when He weeps, to bleed when he bleeds, to pour into His creation. 

Still, I kept quiet, trusting and knowing that when it was time, He would do His thang. An invite from a friend turned into a mention to my husband, which turned into he confiding in me that he had felt like we needed to get plugged into our community, in a local church. He missed the smallness and knowing everybody and everybody knowing you. I didn't say anything because I knew my Jesus was working. 

We made the 30-minute drive to my dear friend's small community church on the other side of Heath Springs. It was really good. The people were welcoming. We sang and sat and listened to the preaching. The preacher that day was from Fork Hill, I believe, and do you know what he preached on? Community. 

We got in our car and made the trip back to our home. We passed about ten churches on the way, and even though we loved everything about my friend's little church, we knew it wasn't where we were meant to be. 

The following Sunday, we walked to the church that my husband's granddaddy built, that we ride by every single time we leave our home. It sits on the hill to the right of our driveway. It's the place we walk around, and that I've prayer-walked around more times than I can count. Its walls have heard some doozies over the last twenty years, its steeple straight and its grounds beckoning. We've walked around it, we've checked up on it, we've been its neighbor since two years after J and I got married. We had not stepped foot in it since Bill died ten years ago, though, and I honestly wasn't sure what was gonna happen when we crossed the threshold.  

It felt like coming home for me, and Cay was over the moon about it, and I don't know why he felt that way either. My husband wasn't feeling it so much, but he agreed to go back. We went the following Sunday--Father's Day--and that's when my long prayer got answered. On the walk home, through the woods, on the newest path we cut that joins my in-laws' place to ours, my husband got teary-eyed and shared something with our children. It was one of those moments where you keep your mouth shut because you recognize when the Holy Spirit is doing the thing you prayed hard for. It was a beautiful, sweet moment and I knew we had found our community. 

God had led us home and it's something He promises in His word that He will do. 

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness. For His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever." 

Psalm 23

All that preparation in the wilderness, led us back home to Him. We found our community. It's funny because it never left! We had. We checked out for a time, but we are home and I thank God that my friend invited us to her church because she couldn't have known that my husband felt that way. She couldn't have known what the Fork Hill preacher was going to preach about. We didn't end up at her church, but God worked it out anyway. I read something about Proverbs 3:5 yesterday that said, the understanding--the not leaning on your understanding part--means you don't need to figure it out. The verse says, 

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones. Honor the LORD with your possessions, and with the first fruits of all your increase; so your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine." 

I could go on, because that verse will preach, but the point I am making here is that she did not understand the why, but she invited us anyway. This outcome of us going somewhere else, may not have been her outcome but it was the LORD's. I am thankful for friends who lean not on their own understanding, who fear the LORD and share the Gospel. Her obedience to her FATHER, blessed the heart of a praying hard-headed wife and a wisdom-seeking, equally hard-headed husband. Glory be to God! 

My prayer is that God will plant the right pastor and the increase into my friend's community church. When the Holy Spirit moves he MOVES. There is nothing that you or I can do that compares to the everlasting omnipotence of God. We can't nag or sway or persuade the right outcomes. We can't make the mountains move. We can't build enough bridges over those valleys. We can do nothing without Him. Nothing. 

This answer has been a long time coming. This path has been directed by the One who calls me daughter. I recently realized some things about myself and I don't need to know why. I don't need to understand and I don't need to figure it all out. God is in control, and it is in the waiting and the listening that we very much lose our focus and get off the path that God has set before us, but we mustn't! We must shut our mouths and lean into His ways, for they are higher than ours. 

"The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; By understanding He established the heavens; By His knowledge the depths were broken up, and clouds drop down the dew. My son-let them not depart from your eyes--Keep sound wisdom and discretion; So they will be life to your soul and grace to your neck. Then you will walk safely in your way, and your foot will not stumble. When you lie down, you will not be afraid; Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden terror, Nor of trouble from the wicked when it comes; For the LORD will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being caught."

Proverbs 3:19-26

What came to my mind when I read this scripture is the fear of unknown cancer maybe's and unknown job securities of the last eight months. I think of the moments where I said, "I will handle it," as the knowledge of my GOD departed from my eyes. I saw the worry and the unprepped, unplanned, searching for answers as we tried in earnest to fix a problem ourselves by looking at homes and discussing moving from our community to fix the long commute my husband was going to have to drive beginning June 8. I saw the stumblings and the bumblings of a family not united, of a decade's worth of distrust and sudden heart-wrenching terror from 2016. I see the trials and the wickedness and the pulling asunder that has wrecked havoc. You may see something different and that's okay.

But my God. My glorious and righteous King. Help is on the way! 

"My son-do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor detest his correction; For whom the Lord loves, he corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights. Happy is the man who finds wisdom. And the man who gains understanding. For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver, and her gain than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies. And all the things you may desire cannot compare with her. Length of days is her right hand, in her left hand riches and honor; Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.  She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her. And happy are all who retain her." 

Proverbs 3:11-18

People tell me all the time, "You got no chill, Jess. You need to calm down." It is a true statement. I don't possess that even-keeled, cool as a cucumber chillax. The slightest thing and I topple like a Jenga tower on its last block, but if I'm honest, I could be, if I'd stop trying to understand it all. If I spent a fraction of the amount of time I spend on social media in the WORD, instead of tied up in knots on the world, glory be, where would I be? I think we all know. 

Time's up for hiding and sitting on the sideline. I know this WORD is for me today, but it's for you too. I hate to be part of that cliche and say you know who you are, but there's only so many ways to say this one's for you, babe. The Lord laid it on my heart, and I am following His instruction. I've been rebuked, and it's time for some follow-through. 

He led us home to our community and He will do the same for you. You just need ask and listen and keep your understanding on silent like we do our cell phones these days.  Friends, we don't have to figure it all out, and we don't have to continue walking down these roads that we chose to follow that aren't the paths God prepared for us.  Again, time's up for hiding and sitting on the sideline of the life God prepared for you. Walk it out.