Why are were here? It’s a question everyone’s asking. I guess to really explain why, I’d have to go back to the beginning of the story. Which for us, starts about 5 years ago when both Cary and I accepted Jesus Christ to be our Lord and our Savior.
It was an ordinary Saturday night, Cary and I were laying in bed and out of nowhere Cary had a thought. Why don’t we try going to church tomorrow morning. I said, “Ok, yeah sure.” I hadn’t grown up in the church, Cary and I both had only been a handful of times throughout our lives. Nothing that left me changed, fulfilled. Nothing that left me wanting more, wanting to know more, wanting to know who this Jesus character really is. We went online and looked up the service times for Resurrection Fellowship, it was a church Cary had been to as a boy just a handful of times. We walked in the doors, dropped our beautiful daughters off in the nursery and went to service. My husband started feeling the presence of God right away, he was ready to hand his life to Jesus. Me on the other hand, my heart was cold and dead. I felt nothing, sure I sang the songs and bowed my head in prayer, but I didn’t feel anything at all. Then after going about a month, Pastor John started preaching on grace. There was a moment when I felt the realness of God, a God with me, not just a God that was part of a book called the Bible. It was the tangible essence of His presence. It was the morning of January 3, 2010 that I gave my life to Jesus.
From that moment on my life has not been the same. I have dreams and hopes. I have prayers and a real life relationship with my God. Jesus saved me that day, He saved my family, my marriage, my motherhood. Since that day I’ve had a deep hunger to know more about God. I jumped right into the women’s Bible study before I even had my own Bible, I was so hungry for the spiritual food that was been offered at Rez that I jumped into everything I possible could. I went to Bible study twice a day, I went to the MoPS (mothers of preschoolers) group, and eventually my husband and I both took a lasting love course.
After walking the with Jesus for a couple of years, Cary felt like it was time for him to leave his position at work. There was nothing wrong with our job, it was providing for all our needs. But was it really? Was it providing everything we NEEDED for life? Sure financially it was okay, it paid bills and put food on the table. It wasn’t everything we needed though. It was at the point we were learning that we were putting our trust in Cary’s ability to provide for our family and not God’s. We felt like God was asking us to fully relay on Him. We felt like God was asking Cary to leave his job. Cary had no other job opportunity lined up to walk to when he left his current position. God was really wanting us to blindly trust in Him. So after months of prayer and petition, after confirmation on top of confirmation we did something bold for God, for ourselves. Cary walked away from his job.
Now life after that did not go at all how I would have imagined. I thought surely money would fall from the sky, checks would come in the mail and we’d be able to stay comfortable. I mean after all it was God’s idea for Cary to leave his job, surely He knew we still had bills to pay and children to care for. But no, those things did not happen, but something even more beautiful did. God gave us His love. He showed up in the form of a group of amazing women from church. Those girls herd about some needs, dropped off groceries, cash and prayed over our property. He showed up in the form of relationship, out of that hard time God gave Cary and I the gift of humility. We learned how to open up and be real. We learned how to say, no we don’t have it all together, honestly I like a mess in this moment. It was during that time that Cary and I really started cultivating nourishing relationships. We saw the love of God, and we saw Him using His people to show it to us.
From that hard time God gave us the laundry service. An idea that we weren’t sure how it would work, or if it was a good idea at all. Out of a need for me to start working, but also be able to stay with my kids we started the laundry service. Cary used the laundry service as a way to learn how to create a website.