LEAD October 2022 | Page 20

Fort Worth area for a solid , blissful decade . Roots . Depth . Community . It was beautiful . Exactly what the Lord knew we needed . The relationships and experiences during that sweet season of our lives marked us forever and laid the strongest foundation for us as a growing family . Mentors shaped us . Lifelong relationships were born . Friends became family . A city finally became a home .
And then . Toward the end of that delightful decade of growing roots , of sweet sameness and consistency , the winds of change gently began to blow again . I resisted at first . And by resisted , I mean , rebuked . Renounced . Rejected .
But the whispers of adventure just kept gently coming . Everywhere I went , every sermon , every book , every podcast , conversation , and even my children ’ s cartoons all began to whisper the same steady message . He was clearly inviting us into something new . He does not force us , of course . The choice is always ours . But a new adventure was awaiting — that much we knew for certain . The question became , would we choose to join Him or not ? Would we cling to comfort or choose to follow Him out on the water again ?
“ For everything there is a season , a time for every activity under heaven . . . . A time to cry and a time to laugh . A time to grieve and a time to dance . . . . A time to embrace and a time to turn away .” ( Ecclesiastes 3:1 , 4-5 , NLT )
At the end of that year , the year I felt God calling
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