I prayed for months for God to send us wherever He needed us to be. Where we could glorify Him. Where we could settle down on some land. Grow a garden. Raise some chickens. Room for our boys to roam. Somewhere peaceful. Somewhere we make friends. Find a healthy church. Grow this business. Somewhere we could be fully apart of our community.
He responded with an image of three grains (to represent God the Father, The Son of God, The Holy Spirit) and said to me, "I will give you abundance for your patience and obedience. An abundance you can not imagine." And here we are. In a season of abundance I couldn't have imagined through my limited vision.
As we've begun to settle in to our new home, my husband and I have been marveling at this beautiful land we now live on in eastern North Carolina. I drive around the rural countryside, with it's farms and livestock and tractors and homesteads and abandoned barns and humble farmhouses down every road, it feels like I've been floating around this world my whole life and I've just now been put back on solid ground. This place is reality. This is as salt of the earth as it gets. Where the past still lives. Where life is a little simpler. Where time slows down. This is where peace is found. Where God surely is. Where glimpses of heaven are all around.
And I think to myself, "How do we get to live here?" Doubt began to break in. The enemy trying to break into something good. Something near perfect. How do we get to live here? Do we even belong here? These folks have lived here their whole lives. We're outsiders. We're "city folk" compared to them. They'll hate us for being here. We'll never catch up to what they've been working their whole lives to build. We haven't earned our place here. Is this even where we're meant to be?
This is why it's important to know the sound of the enemy's voice. When I heard Satan, I turned to my Father and whispered His name..."God". And He ran to me like a good father does. He came near to me and gently whispered back, "Lean in." Give all of your heart. All of your effort. Focus on all the things you prayed for. There's work to be done here. Don't let the devil cause you to lose focus.
So, yesterday, I spent the whole day cleaning out an old shed on our property to temporarily operate The Rooted Market out of. As I cleaned the years of cobwebs from every surface I uncovered an old wooden coat rack with three grains carved into it. And just like that, I knew.
This is what it looks like when God winks.
~Casey
Founder and Shopkeeper
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