Summer. It has officially come and gone and I didn't even do a recap of the spring. Spring was a whirlwind. Forager opened in March and if I ever doubted our lives could stretch and have the capacity for more I sure learned my lesson. That HIS GRACE is sufficient. The days before we opened I was consumed in trying to make the space half way decent for a soft opening. I felt like the worst mom in the world - for making my kids entertain themselves for hours. I look back thinking about how stressed I was but how much of a stranger I was to the space, and a stranger I was to everything in San Jose. Everything felt tarnished. But I had/have faith there is beauty inside its borders. Even in a place that was once considered the street to avoid in downtown San Jose.
^ forager before renovations
I could do a recap of summer and take it a bunch of different angles. We could talk about school - but that really needs it own post. We could talk about the fun we had, but if you were that curious you'd follow us on Instagram and see the snippets I wanted to cherish anyway. I think what I would want to remember was how God has moved in me a love for a city 25 min away.
I was just talking to someone about the scripture that says
"God sets the boundaries at where we are to live"
For so much of my life I dreamed of living someplace else. Being someplace where I could be effective. But if it is the Lord who directs our steps, guides our path then what has been my road? What has been the boundaries He set up for me? It has certainly not been an easy path, despite what people can draw conclusions from. But the day I felt the voice of Jesus speak to us about Forager, I knew then I was being bound in, the other roads blocked and the urgency of the Lord to say yes.
Stevie and I drove in circles around the not yet established Forager and everything in our lives should have said don't do this. Yet, that overwhelming feeling was what I could not shake. As tears streamed down my face, I felt the presence of the Lord and that is the only way I can describe it. You know when He's so near, you just don't think about what anything else means you just trust Him. If you've never experienced my alive and moving God like that I pray you do - shoot even in the middle of reading this. I felt like so many people had prayed and I felt like those prayers were carrying us as the Lord expanded our boundaries from fremont, california a little further to this city. That our weak prayer, of God is this you? was the tipping point of something beyond us.
This spring and especially summer I feel like I've got to know a city that I didn't before. It started with walks to the library, walks to the park - I'd even hear kelilah singing in the streets. Like our whole family was being awakened to see the place with new eyes. During the summer as I started working there more too, and taking that small drive more frequently, it's in those times I've learned to love. Even in the midsts of everyday realities and the confusing, demanding dynamics of business - I keep finding myself remembering things I've known for so long, and still discovering room to let the roots dig deeper still. I still have days where I don't understand why we own a bar. but I don't understand the mind of God... I just know, as I pour more time, I feel really confident in this place. Not whether it's success looks a certain way or not, but just the place. This place that isn't the jungles, or even church ministry, but the boundaries God set for us to dwell in and really there is no better place to be.
