Crossing Our Little Jordan

Elissa’s Story:

I moved to Houston after graduating college in 2007 for a job as an interior designer for an architectural firm. Having grown up and gone to school in Kansas, I was looking for an adventure, so when the Houston position was offered, I jumped! I never had driven on roads with more than 3 lanes of traffic, and learning all of it gave me a great sense of accomplishment. I had a few good friends in Houston before I moved, which made my transition much easier.

But after a year in the big city – 9 hours away from home – I began to miss my family. I only could make a few trips a year, so I missed celebrating birthdays and holidays. About this time I met the man who soon became my husband. His family happened to live only 3 short hours south from my family in Kansas. I was so thankful that he also had strong ties to his family. We each had a couple interviews that we believed would be our ticket to head north, but they were not in God’s plan. We continued to wait and pray.

In November of 2010, we were presented with an opportunity to move to Brownwood, TX. A place my husband knew well as he lived there 10 years after graduating from a technical school. He owned a house there. God lined everything up nearly seamlessly with our lease ending, our tenants moving out to buy a house, and the time frame my husband began work. Brownwood put us about 2 hours closer to home which was nice, but still too far. Since the home was a bit dated, we took it on as a project to update the whole house. In October of 2011 God blessed us with a healthy baby boy. After his birth my longings began to intensify.

God didn’t make us wait long. In December of 2011 my husband was offered a position at a company just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma. This move put us about 3 hours from each of our parents, making for easy weekend trips. It was a very exciting but also crazy time during the holidays; putting our Brownwood house on the market, beginning to move our belongings up, and finding a place to rent knowing we would still probably be making housing payments for awhile.

The house we rented was a cute little house right next to Tulsa University. We got a great deal on the rent because the home was on the market and we signed a contract that we would “stage” the home. I enjoyed this given my college degree. One day in May of 2012, our Brownwood realtor called us to let us know we had an offer on our house! This was exciting news as it seemed like the house we were renting might also soon be selling; I had been hoping our next move would be into a house we would buy. We casually began to look at houses.

We were delighted that after looking at just 6 houses, we found the one we wanted. A relatively new home on 10 acres with a pond, just 25 minutes from my husband’s office. Shortly after we closed on our house in Texas, we closed on our new house in Oklahoma. So we moved out of the rental straight into our new, possibly forever home.

As we hauled our first load over to the house we noticed a sign for the creek we were passing over called the Little Jordan. We both smiled. Much like how God brought the Israelite’s out of Egypt, crossing the Jordan into the promised land. Now we had our own Little Jordan river to cross to arrive at the land God promised us through all of our prayers over the years. Just another reminder of God’s faithfulness to hear our prayers, when we take the time to ask. God’s kept us in Texas for the perfect amount of time so that when we moved closer we could find the home we had dreamed about.

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