Have a comment? Text us!
Sara and her family moved 14 states north. They were committed to the new plan. Sold a house, bought another one, moved the whole family and all their belongings… But 2023 was not the year they had planned.
How do you manage the overwhelming internal questioning when things don’t work out as planned? Questions such as, how do we not know? Why didn’t we take it slower? What was it about me that made it not work? What will everyone think?
In this episode, our Host, Sara takes us into her story of the last year and the logistical, financial, social, and emotional decisions she and her family had to face. How did she and her family manage the struggles and the looming questions without breaking them apart?
Listen to this episode to learn two core beliefs that helped her endure and reconcile the tough internal questioning. Know that having questions is okay. Click on the link and see how you can find hope and peace to take the next step amid an energy-draining uncertainty.
Podcast Host: Sara van Driel
Description By: Yilda Rivera
Coffee With Jesus Website: https://coffeewithjesus.info/
Coffee With Jesus Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cwj2011/
Coffee With Jesus YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsQBybBdPxlSxvmWYfcMzQ
Coffee With Jesus Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/CoffeeWithJesus
Welcome to Coffee With Jesus. I'm your host, Sara Van Driel. It's been a long time since I recorded a new podcast. The last podcast I recorded was released around Valentine's Day of 2023. Our family had just moved 14 states north as we started 2023 and we were focused on leading and love. It's our phrase of the year. Welcome. We didn't know just how important that phrase might be for our family. Friends turns out 2023 was not the year our family had planned. The relocation didn't work out for our family. We had fully committed to this new plan. As in we sold our house, bought a new house, moved our whole family and all of our things 14 States away. However, it became evident that. This just wasn't the right fit for us. And in late February, we called it and made the decision to go home. There's so much excited about coming home and we've made this decision before to come home, but this time it wasn't quite as simple. When you go all in and things don't work out, there's a lot of internal questioning. How do we not know? Why didn't we take it slower? What was it about me that made it not work? Then there are logistical questions like, will EB be readmitted to the same school? What's the next housing arrangement going to be? When do we go back? How much do we take back with us? What do we let go? Then there are the anxiety questions. Will the new house sell? What will everyone think? We'll be okay financially. How will we manage the strong emotions from all of our family as a result? Y'all have prayed over each and every one of these questions and so many more not explicitly named here. God was with me and with our family through this whole last year, in every moment that we struggled to know where to take the next step. And when we were bone tired and couldn't even take that next step. It was a hard year. Leading a love for me this year turned out to be loving my husband and my daughter with all that I had. I never lost faith in God's great plan and never doubted that all that happened this year was absolutely meant to be what should happen. All the way through getting back home to Florida, renovating our house in Florida, and managing one million plus. logistical decisions, I saw God's plan. My husband and I processed the trials, the losses, the gains, the growth, and the remaining questions lots. And I mean lots. And this took a lot of energy. I also have to admit that in this last year, I kind of lost a little bit of the confidence in my voice that I had come. to feel so solid about. I've never claimed to know it all. In fact, if you listen to some of my former podcasts and sharing, I acknowledge more times than not that I don't have the answers. But this time, I feel like I'm entering a season of faith where I know some grounded core beliefs and I start to ask more questions. So when I started to ask more questions, then I found myself needing to go into scripture and find out, like, is it really okay to have questions? Because when your faith is strong and solid, shouldn't you just know that? Shouldn't you just not question it? When friends that also know that we all have questions and are actually encouraged to have questions. but it sometimes feels like, is it the right thing? So took me a long time to push go on recording this podcast to admit I come back with more questions than I have answers. But I go to some of the scriptures like 1 Corinthians 13, 12 that says, for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully." We can't know it all day to day, and I'm reminded of a Bible study that I did with a group of people that are near and dear to my heart, who one of our members shared with me as our Bible study came to a close, that I needed to stop trying to figure out quite so much all the answers because I never fully know them. And I know that. I know one day we will be able to see why all of this happened and how it all fit together and what this great plan is and that we can't know today. But sometimes that's hard when you don't know what's next. So then I go next to Isaiah 55 verses 8 through 9. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." So it gives me a lot of hope, knowing that we, while we can have so many great things to contribute to this world and to others. And we've got a falling to do that well, we'll never have God's thoughts or his ways while we're here on this earthly body that we have. So these two scriptures kind of bring me back to the fact that it's okay to have questions. So as I enter this next season of podcasting for me, which is coming to the close of one season for Coffee with Jesus. the start of another one will be around the corner. I'm coming to you with more of my questions and I'm gonna bring some people in to have chats with me about these questions. And this makes me excited to share what we have to share. So with that, my friends, I want to come back though to say that while there are questions, while I'm gonna bring questions, There's rock solid parts of my faith, my knowing, my deepest knowing, my core part of my soul that know a couple of things. And I just wanna share a couple of those as we go along as well. Two come in mind particularly to share today. And these are two very core beliefs that got me through this last year. The first is, God's with us. God hears us and answers our prayers. God's got a greater plan, and our hard times are just as important for us to grow into our full selves as much as those times that we are thriving. God created me with specific strengths that I can always lean into. While we might not know what things will look like this time next year, we will be okay. That I know. A second core belief is that we have to live with gratitude, that there's something each and every day that can bring joy. And when we think about the things that bring us joy and that we have to be thankful for, it can totally flip a mindset. For instance, my family pulled a ripcord plan this year. We weren't planning on pulling the ripcord plan, but we had one. And I'm really thankful for that. There were moments that we needed to call friends and family to go above and beyond for us. And each and every one of them did it without a second thought. I'm thankful that you be school and they let her back in and she's thriving and growing just the way we had hoped that she would grow. I'm thankful for a best friend who listened to all these questions and got to process them with me. I'm thankful for a strong marriage because friends, to make it through this last year, we needed to draw on the strength of that marriage. Those are only a few. I also get thankful for things like sunrises or sunsets, the ability to see the beach, So many things, these little orange and yellow flowers in my front yard that open up when the sunlight hits them in the daytime. For the cool breeze that comes through while we're out taking a walk. So many things, big and small, to be grateful for, to bring celebration and joy. but also to be okay sitting in things not always feeling like they're, that I want to be thankful for them, or joy and knowing that it's in those that we are growing into the people, that it prepares us for what's coming, it makes us stronger, and what's gonna happen. I have been reading a meditation book called Yes and by Richard Rohr. And there are two things I just want to pull from that particular devotion that speak a little bit to kind of where I am right now and where I'm coming back to coffee with Jesus. He says directly in one of the devotions, when you truly know the giveaway is that you know that you don't know. And I've leaned into this so many times in my life, but I'm leaning into it in a different way, coming back to talk to Jesus with my questions. The other is a quote that Richard Rohr pulls in from Renear Maria Rowe. Be patient towards all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers which cannot be given you. because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. So my friends, as we enter into, as I enter into this next season of my faith journey, of my journey with Coffee with Jesus, I'm gonna lean into the questions. I am going to ask the hard things. And I can't wait to do it with you all, with people that I trust. and love and want to share their voices with you. And I look forward to seeing where this all goes. So meet me again back here on Coffee with Jesus, where we start to ask the questions that can help ground us in these core principles, but also help us explore, help us dig a little deeper, help us think a little more. all in service to wanting to seek the truth, to seek God's will, to be the people that God created us to be. So until we meet again, it's okay to have questions. And I look forward to talking about those with you.