Trust Him anyways

Let’s talk about trust. For anyone that is up close in my life, they know I like to be in control of things going on in my life. My brother said something to me recently that I have kept replaying in my head. He said that he thinks a lot of my anxiety comes from times when I am not in control. He said that he thinks that I try to control things to help with my anxiety. I was sort of irritated to hear this at first, but the more I kept thinking about it the more it rang true in my life. Especially the past season of my life. Obviously this is not a good method to have, because I can not control everything in my life. This year has been the complete opposite of being in my control. UGA switched to all online classes in March and I was not able to go back to my student teaching in my third-grade classroom. All of my friends from school went back to their parent’s houses and we never really got to say goodbye to each other. And on top of this, I did not get to say goodbye to my third-grade students that I had grown so attached to. But, this was just the start of everything being outside of my control. We had to stay in homes for what seemed like forever. I was also in the last few months of planning our wedding. It seemed like everything that could have possibly gone wrong with planning our wedding did. On top of wedding planning, we still did not have a place to live after we got married and Drew was looking for a better job. Oh, and Drew’s college graduation was canceled. In this season, all I could see was negatives and it seemed like life just kept kicking me while I was down. I had no idea that what God had in store for our life was much better than anything I could have planned myself.

Wedding Planning during a Pandemic

Well… planning a wedding period is stressful, but planning a wedding during a global pandemic is a new type of stress. We went back and forth with so many different options.

• Should we postpone it?

• Should we have a small ceremony & a big reception next year?

• Should we just get married with family and not do anything else?

I spent countless hours on phone calls with our vendors and our coordinator trying to decide what option would be best for us. About three weeks before the wedding, the mandate in Georgia was that there could be no gatherings of more than 10 people at a music venue. Our coordinator found out that our venue fell under the category of a “music venue”, and they could not allow us to have more than 10 people on the day of our wedding. Or we could book a later date. There was talk that this would change on June 1st, which would be only 6 days before our wedding. We had no idea what to do. Should we wait it out until less than a week before the wedding to make the call? Or should we try to find somewhere else? Should we just get married in our backyard?

We had all these questions going through our minds and no answer. This same week Drew’s dad, Greg, had been talking to a friend and he found out his friend had built a large barn on his private property. He does not use it as a business, but just a place for family and close friends to use. He told Greg that we could go look at it, and if we liked it we could use it for our rehearsal dinner and wedding. And he also said he would not charge us to use it. A few days later, we went and looked at the barn, and it was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. We immediately fell in love with it. Because it was on private property, the Georgia mandate did not apply here. The owner still asked that we keep it around 50 people, though. We all decided that would be the best and the safest way to go about our wedding. We had to limit it to just the bridal party and our family up to first cousins. But let me tell you, our wedding turned out to be even more beautiful than we could have even imagined. We had the most important people there and it was such an intimate ceremony and reception. It was perfect. But, if you would have told me six months prior, that we would not be getting married at the venue we booked and that we would only have 50 people there... I would have looked at you like you were crazy. I mean... really? This was just the biggest wrench thrown in our wedding plans, there were plenty of little things on top of all this to contribute to the chaos. I had everything planned how I wanted it to go, but little did I know God had much bigger and better plans for us.

Looking for somewhere to live

I have brought this up many times to Drew and I just laugh at myself. When we got engaged, I said I wanted to have where we were going to be living planned out before we went home for Christmas break in December of 2019. I thought six months would be a perfect time ahead to have a lease signed at an apartment or a house. It was the perfect plan. Well.. we weren't sure of where Drew would be working then and we could not find anywhere in a college town that had leases starting in June. So we just waited it out. Then about April rolled around and it was two months before our wedding and we had absolutely no clue where we would live. I continuously looked for places to rent, but they were all crazy expensive and we just honestly could not afford them. Then, I decided to look for houses for sale just for the heck of it on Zillow. I came across a house that was super cute in Monroe and texted it to Drew. I said, "Why don't we just buy a house instead 😂". I was completely joking. Well I mean I wanted it to be true, but I just thought buying a house would not be an option for us. Drew ran some numbers and called me and said hey that might actually be possible for us to do. Drew's brother had just bought a house, so we talked to him about it and realized it was something we could make work. We went and looked at the house a few days later and fell in love. It was so cute and we just thought it was perfect for us. And it was... until the inspection came back. It had a list of over 100 things wrong with it. We were devested, frustrated, and heartbroken. We decided to pull our offer and keep looking. We used a real estate agent my dad recommended, and she worked so hard to help us find a house and was so kind during the process. We went a looked at a few houses and even put an offer in on one, but they accepted someone else's offer. Then, we found a house that was just out of our price range, but we texted it to her just to see what she thought. She told us there was no harm in looking at and we could always put in an offer. The least they could say is no or give us a counter offer. With all the disappointment we had experienced lately, we did not get our hopes up. We went and looked at it that night, and fell in love with it. This house was in the perfect location for us, built 78 years after the previous one, and overall an adorable house. We put an offer in that night, and we were under contract the next day. But, we just couldn't really be excited about it. I just knew this would end in heartbreak, too. We had the house inspected, and everything turned out good with the house. There were no major problems, yay! Our closing date was set for after the wedding, which was not a big deal, but we just asked if it could possibly be moved up any sooner. They said that June 4th would work! We ended up closing on our house TWO days before we got married. Now if that wasn't way off of my plan I don't know what was. We got to spend our first night married in our house and we got to come home from our honeymoon to our house! When we were so upset about all the other houses not working out, we did not know that our house just was not listed yet. I mean seriously... God's plans are SO much better than mine.

About the honeymoon

Drew's parents booked our honeymoon at Sandals in Jamaica. The resort told us they would be opening back up on June 1st and we would be able to go on our honeymoon there. We were so thankful and happy that we would still get to enjoy this part of our plan. It was really one of the only things we kept holding on to. Things would go wrong and we would say to each other, “At least we are still going to get to go to Jamaica”. Well... Drew called them to ask them a question about our reservation and they informed him that they would not be open yet when our trip was booked. WHAT?!? Again, heartbroken. Keep in mind, this was during the same time we did not know if our wedding was going to even happen yet and we still didn’t have somewhere to live. We were so upset and had been looking so forward to being able to get away after all of this stress and just relax. On top of this, the resort would not give Drew’s dad a refund, they would only rebook at a different date. Well.. this did not help us at all. We got together with our parents and brainstormed some ways that we could save money to put towards a different trip. We saved some money in different areas and our parents, thankfully let us put that towards a new trip. I found a place in Treasure Island, Florida. This was also a blessing in disguise, because we did not have to worry about flying or being in a different country during the pandemic, and we decided to go on the Jamaica trip to celebrate our one year anniversary. In a way, we are getting two honeymoons! We fell in love with Treasure Island and it was such a neat place. We are also excited that we will be able to go to Jamaica after my upcoming heart surgery so that it will ensure my heart is fixed so I can fully enjoy the trip. And yet again, God’s plans were way better than mine.

Drew’s new job

I won’t go into too much detail about this, but basically Drew was looking for a new job. But, that is not easy during a global pandemic. He applied to many jobs, but none of them seemed to work out. He interviewed at a place the week of the wedding. They scheduled a second interview for the Tuesday after we got back from our honeymoon. He was then offered this job in the next few days, and he started exactly a month after we were married. And this job was much better than any job we could have planned for. We found out after we bought our house that if he would have gotten a new job during the home buying process it could have made things a lot more difficult and could have potentially prevented us from buying a house. Even if it was tough at the time, we kept telling ourselves that we would look back and be able to see why none of the other jobs worked out because God was saving this one for him. And that was 100% true. So far, he has only had to go into the office two times, which we both have enjoyed because we get to spend so much time together throughout the day. He also gets off around 4:30 and isn’t commuting! And yet another reason we should trust God.

What do I know about God now that I did not know 6 months ago?

The main thing God has taught me is trust. Which as someone who has been a Christian almost my whole life, it kind of seems silly that I am just now learning to trust God. As a follower of Christ, I feel like I am either always telling people or people are telling me to trust God. This is so easy to say to someone, but it is exceedingly difficult to actually step into that fully. During this season of my life, I did not trust God like I wish I could say that I did. I was getting so frustrated with God. I said so many times"What are the chances that the time I decide to get married there is a pandemic?" "Why me, God?". Because during this season I felt like nothing would ever go my way. I know I could have handled everything differently, but I am so thankful for this lesson from the Lord. He could see what I could not see. He had better plans for me that were completely different than my own. He has my best interest when I don’t even know what is best for me. There have been moments where I begin to slip back into some of this type of anxiety with my upcoming surgery, but I remind myself of how faithful He was during that season of my life. I know that I can trust the Lord with my entire being, and I encourage you to do the same.

xoxo,

Madison

Proverbs 3:5

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding