Pause... and Reset

Pause... and Reset - two words that keep coming to mind during our moving transition.

Pause.  Stop, cease, be still.  Take a breath.  Look up.  Selah.

I even have a daughter named after this important process.  How is it that I so frequently refuse to participate in a pause?

Our calendar in AR was completely booked solid.  Ballet, piano, speech therapy, violin, soccer, Life Group, Real Life, homeschool Co-op, Perspective class, reviews, church, doctor appointments.  run. Run. RUN.  Every minute of every day. No time to pause, no time to cease, no time to be still or breathe.

Here's our calendar before our move (it's from Home Educating Family)

Here's our calendar after we moved - can you spot when the moved happened?

Pause.  Thank you God!


Reset.  Change. Reboot. Rework.  Renew.

A move is a reset button.  Time to reset your belongings, your priorities, your commitments.   Even as I unpack, I keep resetting.

 Do I really need/want this? Who really needs 3 set of measuring spoons, or outdated spices, or old magazines?

 Do I even like it?   I've never, ever liked some of the stuff we have.  Why do I keep it?

What fits comfortably in our new life and space, what was something we did out of pattern or habit?  Some of our activities in Arkansas became a rut we were in.  We continued to plow through the schedule, stuck in the pattern of doing some activities because that was "what we always do", or even doing them to meet the expectations of others.  I think God "reset" our schedule so that we could consider carefully and intentionally what needed to stay and what needed to go.

I'm loving more unhurried time on the beautiful mission field that God planted in my very own home.  Time to connect with my children's hearts again.  Time to remember how much I love and admire the man I married. Time to renew my interest in hobbies long buried in the demands of the schedule.

God's resetting my focus on educating my own precious children.  With no Co-op (that I dearly loved) comes no default school plan for us - we have to pray, listen and act on what God is speaking to us for our next steps.  I'm ever grateful for my season with our Co-op, but excited to see what God has in store for us this coming year.

I love that God designed a pause and reset for us.  All you have to do is move! :-)  Just kidding... I think you can do this right where you are.  I'm just difficult to reach, so God has to move me!

Texas... We're HERE!

Look out Texas... the Bentz Bunch has arrived!

The moving process is proceeding.  All of our junk... I mean valuable treasures have arrived to our new home.   A couple casualties along the way... one fish (rest in peace Zapster), several bookcases - I'm weeping, and who know's what else.  This is my new "library area"...

It's wonderful and awful to have someone pack and move you.  Wonderful,  because I didn't have to pack all those dishes and books!  Awful, because they packed it - I can't find a thing!  They truly pack everything - even the trash, dirty dishes (which are covered in mold after a few days - yuck!), and stuff that you would never keep, if you had looked at it!  It's sorta like Christmas, with weird surprises as you unpack.

My kiddos have been amazing.  They are going with the flow... and really stepping up as full time unpackers and organizers - which is the "unit study" we are currently doing!  Moving 101.

 
My dear friend and her children have been here helping tame the chaos - and helping me "purge" - especially in the kitchen spice department (I have serious spice hoarding issues...).  She also took my kiddos to the park, and made new friends for us!

I met our neighbor bright and early our first day, by backing into his car with my van.  Hope we can be friends anyway...

Last night, two more neighbors stopped by with cookies and dinner, both of them homeschoolers.  One family has 11 kids - I've been "beat"!

Best of all,  we discovered a wonderful bonus to our new property - a very large "green belt" of undeveloped wilderness - just waiting to be explored with our next door neighbor's four kids!  Yeah!!

I'm so thankful for how God goes before us to create a path for us.

Our Welcoming Committee

The GBA (Great Bentz Adventure) is underway!  I told you in my last post about our miraculous - 4 days on the market, home sale, and I promised to tell you the story of our "welcome to Texas"...

A month ago we started this crazy, roller coaster ride...anyone else ever move?  You know what I'm talking about!

Matt and I flew to San Antonio, to "check it out"...   After a day of looking at real estate - our dear friends took us to the Tejas Rodeo.

My heart was still a bit uncertain if moving again, starting all over again, all that work... was really what I wanted to do.  I still hadn't felt that I had the "sign" from God that this was the direction that HE was sending us in.

All those thoughts and emotions swirling around in my head,  I decided to just forget about the decisions and enjoy some good old rodeo!  It was my first rodeo, after all :-)

I casually noticed a familiar looking lady a couple rows in front of us, then I noticed her husband.  HEY,  I know them!!  Isn't it amazing that you can be hundreds of miles from home, and recognize a friend?  But, this was not just another couple we knew...  this was our "welcoming committee"!

Turns out that God had place the one of the only people that I would recognize as a "welcome" right in front of me at the rodeo. This couple had been our "welcoming committee" way back in Minnesota.  They were pastors from our church!

 Yep, only God could strategically place someone from my past that would welcome me to my future. I just love how he speaks!!

So, after she gave me a big Texas-sized hug, and welcomed me to Texas...  I knew I had the sign I was looking for.

Texas, here we come!

Roots, Shoots, Pruning & Blossoming, and... FRUIT!

So, I've already made the "official" announcement that the sign is in the yard... read that post first!

Now, less than a week later - I get to announce that the sign is leaving the yard, after it gets a pretty SOLD sticker on it!  Yeah God, just 4 days on the market, until an offer - what a miracle!

All this flurry of change has gotten me thinking... and praying.  I'm sure that God is in every detail of this move already,  like how HE personally sent a "welcoming committee" ahead of us to San Antonio.  (I promise to get to that story... I just got to share this one first!)

When I was praying for guidance, and for God to "show" me what he wanted us to do,  I got this picture:

Roots  

Our roots began in Minnesota,  both our families were from there.  Both my husband and I grew up in that wonderfully frigid state.  We both were blessed with strong Christian families and married to start our own legacy.








Shoots 

Our 8 beautiful "shoots" sprang up in Minnesota as well. (they must have strong roots to survive there!)  This was a busy time of life - baby, after baby, after baby... all 8 of them.  It was a time of growing and stretching, and growing again!  We outgrew our little garden spot (Farmington) and transplanted to a larger plot (Savage).  Our homeschooling season began as well.






Pruning & Blossoming 

 This season took us to Conway, Arkansas.  Leaving everything comfortable and well-known behind, we headed south to a more friendly "growing zone".  God also allowed the painful pruning that comes before the blossoming... we experienced four miscarriages, and the end to our fertile times with a medically necessary hysterectomy. We faced a fearful diagnosis of breast cancer. We learned new dependence on God for all our needs, and watched his never-ending provision front row.

 As our "shoots" began growing - we also started to see the buds of blossoms beginning! We joined a homeschool co-op - where each of us thrived and developed.  It has been a wonderful greenhouse of learning for us - covered in friendship and abundant grace.  We developed deep, sustaining friendships.  Our church has also been a safe place to grow for each of us.  Sam and I were able to take the long awaited mission trip to India to realize a dream that had been planted in his heart back as a "shoot".  We have truly begun to blossom in Arkansas!

I asked God, "What comes next...?  What do you have in store for us now?"  I heard a one-word answer...

FRUIT

I can't wait to see what unfolds in the next season for us!

It's Official!

Something about seeing the sign in your yard... makes it seem REAL.

We are really moving to San Antonio, TX - I sure hope Texas is ready for the Bentz Bunch!   The last 2 weeks have a been a blur.  How under heaven did we accumulate so.much.stuff?!

Unlike our last move, my children are 4 years older, and able to be amazing helpers.  Due to our focused team effort - we pulled this house together, and got it "show ready" in record time!   Why do we wait to tackle all those "honey -do" projects until we are about to move?   I'm planning on becoming a recovering clutter addict in TX.  I'm already working the schedule to include monthly maintenance days... let's see if I can follow through.

But seriously, this move has already been a time of  spiritual growth time for me.

•   I've realized how much we have just sat on all our "blessings" instead of letting them bless others through us.  
• I've realized that I can trust God to take us ANYWHERE - even Texas! 
• I've learned that we may have too many books... (opps - still working on accepting that one)   

Would you join us in praying for a successful, and quick sale, of our beautiful (dare I say - clean and DECLUTTERED) home.?   We are eager to join Dad in San Antonio as soon as possible!

A pleasant by-product of this stressful process - we are all enjoying seeing the schoolroom floor & desktops, which had become more of  myth around here,  than a reality...

Another Adventure!

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words.  Can you tell from our pictures where the next Great Bentz Adventure is going to be?  (anyone want to read about the first "GBA"? - one of my first blog posts...)

If you guessed - TEXAS, you are correct!  The Bentz Bunch is heading to the only state big enough to hold us.  We were trying out our western wear at the Tejas Rodeo in San Antonio (our destination).

Would you pray for us as we begin this new chapter?  I'll be updating you as the story unfolds!

Now What do I do?

Well, we're here... the boxes are kinda unpacked, school is back in session, now what?
We had a bit a rough landing, lots of drama and suspense with the house sale (where did "water issues" come from? - never saw that one coming...!)

Now we are in our spacious, 3 bedroom rental home, it looks as if our house in MN will close on Oct 23rd - it's time to move forward. The only problem, I don't know which way is forward?! I can't wait until finding my way to a carton of milk doesn't seem like such a huge adventure!!! Moving is HARD! Not to mention, it hasn't stopped raining since we arrived, it's gray and wet all the time - it matches my mood. I need some sunshine soon. But, at least it's not snowing here, and it is snowing in Minnesota!

A good friend wants me to put a "diaper counter" on my blog - does anyone know how to set one up? I have 3 in diapers, so it could make for some impressive numbers!!!

We Made It!

Okay - enough about what an awesome blog I have - especially since I don't even know how to use it!!! Thank you Jenny for being my blog-setter-upper... I think you could turn this into a home business - setting up blogs for people too tech challenged to do it themselves...

We have so many amazing God stories to tell about our GBA (Great Bentz Adventure) moving from Savage, Minnesota to Conway, Arkansas!

The most recent is - We sold our house on the WAY to AR! Isn't it just like God to show up at just the moment - I'm constantly amazed at his perfect timing. I felt much like the Israelites must have when they were looking at the flooded Jordan River - knowing that God's promises for them where on the other side, but not really "seeing" how they were going to get there to claim them!

Our home in Savage had been on the market for a couple of months, but no offers, my husband was commuting back and forth, I was home alone (relative term - I did have the 8 kids, 2 cats, 2 frogs, and the dog). So, we called the movers, loaded everything on the truck (actually 2 trucks, we ran out of room...) and headed south for our rental home to reunite our family. I really did NOT see how we were going to manage a mortgage and rental, I really did NOT want to leave the wonderful support and family we enjoyed in MN. BUT - I knew that God had directed us to "go and tell" - not to "stay and pray" - That was actually a word from God through Jenny!!

Well, after the frenzy of packing the car, the van and my parents pickup with all the misc. that didn't go with the movers - we put the kiddos in their seats - cats in a cage - dog and frogs with Matt and off we went!

We got the call with the offer, for the house, negoitiated it, and sold the house before we hit the AR state line a mere 11 hours later! Wow- Grace and Mercy in a moving van!! Our God is so good!!!

I promise more installments on the GBA - and even pictures (after Jen teaches me how to do that :-)