Community--An Answered Prayer

I prayed, literally FOR YEARS, for God to bring Ryan and me to a church that we would both love, and become involved in, with a good kids program for Mira, that we could make Christian friends in and grow in our faith. (I prayed that very specific prayer over and over.) I really started praying that in 2015 and in July 2016 we moved to Mt. Olive and a few months later we got connected to Kristi and Mike and through them joined a women’s and men’s group before we ever set foot in MOVE on a Sunday. We enjoyed those groups but after they ended, we lost touch with Kristi and Mike for a couple of years. We started going to another church but never got connected with anyone the entire time we were there. Then we, somehow, (I don’t even remember how) got into a small group at the Posey’s in 2018 with what I now affectionately refer to as “The Four Families” (Justices, Posey’s, Marcuses and Us).

We still didn’t go to MOVE on Sundays (LOL) but we went to a small group with them every Friday night. That changed everything for us. Our whole lives. We built friendships that have turned into family. We have bared our souls with one another, we have laughed and cried, eaten a ton of BLTs and played hours of cards, vacationed together, welcomed children together, and prayed so many prayers over one another I can’t begin to count them.

In 2019 the Sunday after we returned from our honeymoon we came to MOVE on a Sunday and have never looked back. I CANNOT express to you the amount of times I have thanked God for the answered prayer that is MOVE church. It is always on my lips, every time my sisters comfort me in my sadness and grief, every time some young person invests their time, energy, and love in our daughter, every time I am privileged to serve on my serve teams, every time someone loves me enough to share a Word from God for me or Ryan, every time Fox texts me and helps me with my Bible questions (heck, even our Crossfit life stems from relationships made with people from MOVE and that’ll just send me into a whole other area of praise and thanks for the relationships we have there that are such a blessing to our lives, lol!)

MOVE is one of THE BIGGEST AND BEST answers to prayer that I have ever personally received. God answered over and above anything that I could have imagined when I asked Him all those times. I know the church is not perfect and I am not trying to idealize it but truly for me and Ryan, this is the place, the church family that we needed and still desperately need.

Our lives would not be what they are right now without MOVE. I don’t know how we went so long without these people, this family, in our lives. There is so much more I want to do at MOVE. I long to make deeper relationships with so many more people at MOVE. I want to do more with and for the people at MOVE. I can’t express my gratitude often enough for what God has done for me and Ryan and Mirabelle through the people of MOVE church. Some of the sweetest, most loving, giving, saints there ever were.