If you would have asked Eric five years ago if we would ever leave Wellspring Church, he would have said, "You’re crazy for asking me that question. Of course not, I would never leave! I love the body of believers here. I have purpose serving in this church. I have developed some of the best friendships I've ever had in my life at this church! I enjoy working with the Pastor and the staff and leadership to accomplish God' work. How or why would we ever leave Wellspring?"
Well, the answer to that question is, "Only when God moves you on." I know that this might come as a shock to many people reading this. I like most people don't like change. But, somehow, during change God allows us to see his hand at work. We will try to explain what God has been doing in our lives since July. We have felt God telling us for a while He wants to move us to a church in our neighborhood where we moved last November . We thought, we just moved to a new area, new neighborhood, new house, new schools even a new grocery store, etc. , why would we change one of the only things we knew as well. This July, Eric and I both had a peace that God was moving us on and the scary thing was we didn’t know where or what that meant for our family. We have been at our church for 6 years and It has been a huge part of our lives and has brought us closer to God and taught us and allowed us to grow in our relationship with Christ. The church has done so much for us and we have been blessed. We have had a harder time getting to the church on time and attending functions because of the disease and living farther away. Our church has grown so much over the years, we have started to feel disconnected because we were not able to get involved like we used to due to physical limitations, distance and timing. It has been hard for Eric to know where he could serve after not being on staff any longer for two years. This has been extremely difficult for Eric as he had such a passion for others at the church and serving in his position on staff. Also, We thought it might be a good idea for Zach to get involved with a youth group over here so he could make friends in a new school and invite his friends to church and youth events in Grandville. It may not seem like we moved far, but in this busy world we live in, an extra 20-30 minutes makes a big difference to some people. We really want to reach out to our neighbors here to share Christ with them and we have been so blessed being able to do this recently. We want to use our gifts and our home to serve God and bring him glory. Everything we have belongs to Him!
We have visited many churches in this area and found a small church that meets in Maddie’s school about a block from here called Life Church and their mission is to lead others to become fully devoted followers of Christ. The Pastor lives about a mile from us and actually has an accessible home with an elevator (what are the odds of that? – that’s God). He visits us weekly and prays with us and we are discovering many ways that we can serve there even in a wheelchair. Zach has started youth group there and met a 7th grader who ended up on his football team whose family has been a blessing to us. I started my Bible Study this fall and knew no one except a woman who introduced herself and said she is from Life Church which really touched me. We started a Life group at our house and we are doing a study called Prodigal God that looks at the parable of the prodigal son in a way we have never thought of before and so far it has really been teaching us about the way of self discovery and the way of righteousness. Both are lost and far from God. We know God orchestrates these groups and both couples in our group have been touched personally by someone they know with ALS.
We have seen so many times how God is at work in our lives and how he uses others or circumstances to speak to us and recently we have been shown how God has used us to speak to others about who He is and our faith in Him that gets us through tough times. Our blog is one way that we can do this. I am always surprised to find out who has come across our blog and been uplifted in some way. Mostly people with ALS or who have a family member with ALS, but recently a woman I know ran into me at a grocery store on the other end of town I just happened to stop at the same time she was there. She was going to have brain surgery from a tumor they had found that week and said she thought of our family and what we were going through when she heard that and then here I was! That is God! She asked me how we did it and I told her it was from the Lord and his grace. We always have opportunity to be a testimony to Him and this brings Him glory!
I know us leaving our old church is really hard for some people to understand, but we really feel that God has moved us on. It has been very difficult for us to leave and trust God and we will miss worshipping with many of you as you have been so supportive to us over the years. In my Bible Study lecture last week I heard the leader say “Following God means trusting his leading in other people’s lives. We need to encourage others to follow Jesus no matter what that looks like or means. “ This was in reference to John Chapter 1 where Jesus came as John the Baptist prophesied and John the Baptist’s disciples left him to follow Jesus. John stayed right where he was doing what God wanted him to do. He didn’t follow them because that wasn’t God’s plan for him. I’m sure he was sad that the people he had been spending so much time with left him but he trusted God’s leading in their lives. Jesus asked the disciples what they wanted and then he said come spend the day with me. God wants us to trust Him and obey Him. I personally would like an itinerary of what that looks like or means as I am a planner and like to know what my day looks like. I have learned as a caregiver that my day never lines up with what I think it should be and my to-do list is never done. This week in Bible Study, the teaching leader said “God wants us to hand over our planner and He wants to give us a notebook to fill with His words and His plans”. Wow, that was a tough one for me to hear but I know that’s what He wants from me.
Fall has been very busy for us with Zach in Football (#34 for Grandville 78ers). Their team is 5-0. Maddie is playing Soccer (#5 for AYSO Bumblebees) and scored her first goal yesterday. We had the ALS Walk last week and God gave us the most beautiful morning after days of freezing cold and rain. It was a glorious day and we were so blessed to have almost 100 people come out to walk with our team. Thank you to Texas Roadhouse and all the other vendors who donated our lunch. The walk was downtown Grand Rapids this year and we walked right along the river and saw many of the Art Prize exhibits which were still down there. My dear cousins from Tennessee (Lauren and Avery are pictured above with Zach) actually drove up here for the walk and stayed with us for a few days which was so much fun! We were blessed and helped the ALS Association raise money and awareness for ALS and really appreciate everyone who walked or donated to the walk.
Today, I was able to go to an ALSA sponsored caregiver’s conference with my friend Erin whose husband also has ALS and we met some wonderful people and heard two wonderful speakers, Cecil Murphy and Shelly Beach speak about caregivers challenges and encourage us to keep doing what we do for our loved ones. It was a wonderful conference and we were fed lunch donated by Fazoli’s and pampered with some great door prizes as well. I was so excited to win a night for our family to stay at Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City and water park passes but not half as excited as my kids were!!!
Other great news we got today is that my sister’s CA125 level has gone down to 25! Those of you who follow her blog can access her link on the right of our blog. We are so excited to hear this wonderful news as her battle with Cancer has been so tough but they can clearly see God’s hand at work in their lives. Praise God!!!
Lastly, we love to hear your comments either via email or by clicking the comment tab at the bottom of each entry. Many of you have said you have tried to post and it gets erased so you give up and I know that is discouraging so here is a quick “comments 101”
Click on comments and type your comment in the box, before you hit post comment, you either need to sign in (create a Google account if you don’t have a sign-in) or if you don’t want to do this, click anonymous before you post. If you want us to know who wrote the comment, just sign your name in the comment box. The comments are then emailed to us and then we publish them as soon as we get them. We are so encouraged by your comments. It’s kind of like getting mail, the good kind, not bills!
Keep following Jesus!!
Lori and Eric Fox
Thank you for your continued prayers, as the weather gets colder we will be home quite often and would love to visit with you. Our door is always open!
