When we first moved to Texas from South Dakota it took time for it to feel like home. But eventually, we were planted.

We had found our people, our church and our community. Our boys were thriving at Legacy. Our 4th grade twins had just been baptized, and after several moves as a family, we had finally told our kids, “This is it. We’re putting down Texas roots.”

And then God asked us to leave.

My husband John was given an incredible career opportunity in Illinois. Everything in us wanted to stay, but as we prayed about it, we both felt an unmistakable peace that going was the right thing to do.

At the time, my Bible study had just been studying Jonah, so we jokingly started calling Illinois my “Nineveh.” It wasn’t where I wanted to go, but I believed God was asking us to go.

So we went.

And it was hard.

We enrolled our boys in what we believed would be a wonderful Christian school, but circumstances became incredibly difficult. One of our boys experienced significant harm, and we made the decision to pull our boys out of the school.

Suddenly, I was homeschooling — something I never would have planned for our family.

But in the middle of one of the hardest parts of our Illinois story, God gave us a gift we couldn’t see at first. Sitting beside my boys every day and watching them learn, I began to realize that some of their struggles weren’t simply because school was hard. There was something more going on.

That unexpected season ultimately led us to answers: ADHD, dyslexia and dysgraphia. We began to understand how our boys learned, what they needed and how to advocate for them.

Something I never would have chosen for them ultimately became something God could use for their good.

We enrolled the boys in another Christian school for 5th grade. We couldn’t help but compare everything to what we had had at LCA especially with their recent diagnosis and the lack of support and accommodations. 

My friend Crystal worked in admissions at LCA. She knew what had happened in Illinois, knew how much we wanted to come back, and at the beginning of the next school year she called with news that felt like an answered prayer:

There was a kindergarten spot for our youngest son but we only had a few days to decide.

I was certain this was it. I had felt for some time that God was calling us back to Texas, and now suddenly there was a place for our son at LCA. Surely this was the open door I had been waiting for.

Except John wasn’t there yet.

In all our years of marriage, we had never really found ourselves on completely different pages about something this big. When John asked his boss whether we could move back to Texas, the answer was no.

I was heartbroken.

More than that, I was confused.

God, how could I have been so wrong?

I had been so confident that He was leading us home. The unexpected opportunity at LCA had seemed like confirmation. And yet every door was closed.

There wasn’t anything left for me to do.

So I cried. I prayed. And I waited.

And somewhere in that waiting, I felt God asking me to stop trying to make the answer happen and trust Him with it.

My prayer became that God would change a heart.

Maybe mine.

Maybe John’s.

Maybe John’s boss’s.

I didn’t know which one needed changing. I just knew I couldn’t force it.

So I waited.

Months passed.

And slowly, without me convincing him, John’s heart began to change. He began to see what I had been seeing. Illinois wasn’t working for our family anymore. Eventually, he felt the same conviction I had felt months before:

It was time to go.

Then, in November, Crystal called again.

Several students were leaving Legacy at semester.

There was a kindergarten spot for us. Again.

This time, when I asked John if he would talk to his boss, his answer was different.

He wasn’t asking because I wanted him to anymore. He believed it too.

In fact, he was so certain that going back to Texas was the right thing for our family that he told me that if necessary, the boys and I could move back without him. He would stay in Illinois for work and figure out how to see us when he wasn’t working.

And while we were trying to figure out how any of this could possibly work, our LCA community was already surrounding us. Friends offered short-term rentals. People helped us look for houses. Before we even got back to Texas, our community was helping make a place for us.

John went to his boss again.

The same question.

But this time, the answer was yes.

A few months later, we packed up our family and came home to Texas — and to Legacy.

Our “Nineveh” had lasted a year.

It was a year I never would have chosen, especially for my son. But we didn’t leave Illinois empty-handed.

We left understanding our boys in ways we hadn’t before.

We left knowing more about ourselves and our marriage.

We left knowing what it feels like to obey God when obedience doesn’t immediately make life easier and when it’s incredibly painful. 

And we learned something about waiting.

Sometimes you can be right about where God is leading and wrong about when.

Six months after returning to Texas, God gave us one more little reminder of His faithfulness.

A house came up for sale on our old street.

Not just any house. It was the house we used to walk past and say, “That is the best house on this street.”

It had a rare four-car garage, a pool, and a backyard big enough for wiffle ball games with our three boys.

We bought it.

And somehow, after being uprooted, after our year in “Nineveh,” after crying and questioning and waiting and wondering whether I had heard God completely wrong…

He planted us right back where we had started.

Only we weren’t the same family anymore.

That house felt like a giant hug from God. Not because God’s faithfulness is measured by houses or pools or answered prayers that look exactly the way we hoped they would. But because it felt like such a personal reminder:

I saw you. I was with you. I was working even when you couldn’t see it.

Looking back now, I can see that God’s faithfulness wasn’t just in bringing us home.

He was faithful when He asked us to leave.

He was faithful in Illinois.

He was faithful in the circumstances we never would have chosen.

He was faithful through the people at Legacy who kept making room for us before we could even get back.

He was faithful when the first answer was no.

He was faithful while I waited.

And He was faithful when, in His timing, the answer became yes.

We thought putting down roots meant staying exactly where we were.

God showed us that our security was never supposed to be in the roots.

It was supposed to be in Him.

And when He eventually planted us back in the very community we had left, we came home with a much deeper appreciation for what He had given us — our church, our school, our people, and the privilege of raising our boys here.

Years later, when I look at our boys at Legacy, I don’t just see the school we chose for them.

I see part of the story God was writing all along.

A story of obedience.

A story of waiting.

A story of a God whose “no” sometimes means not yet.

And a story that reminds our family that even when we cannot see what He is doing, God is faithful in every season!!!