Goodbye Paines by the sea, Hello Paines by the chickens

Shell Beach 

Our Old Home 

Although we can see the sea from our kitchen window we are more like the Paines by the chickens; if stepping on chicken crap and being woken by roosters at 4 am is quite the  constitution for this new title or season if you'd like to call it that.  The chickens are not ours but we practically share the same living quarters with them.  The only difference is they're squaters and were renters! Ironically we live on the same street where Michael grew up in Arroyo Grande.  A place in San Luis Obispo we always dreamed of living.  It's not the french country home I dreamed of, but we have the goats and chickens as a start towards our little fantasy!  

So this afternoon as I was driving back to our new country cottage  I thought to myself how I don't miss Shell Beach like I thought I would.  Of course the sentimentality of our precious home and kind neighbors was difficult waving goodbye too but we had to trust the Lord was bringing us further into his plans.  To be frank, we did not have a lot of clarity as to where we were suppose to live.  We looked for months.  Nothing to my standards as Michael would probably say.  Which was true most of the time until the words came pouring out one night as I was in tears after having put a deposit down on a cat wreaking, pot smoking house, we resigned to because we felt desperate, "I just want something clean and odorless!"  For about a week I was a walking puddle.  When would I see the promise land?  For 6  weeks we stayed with a family from church.  Our things were in their garage and in a storage unit and we no longer had the keys to 329 Windward.  This small and incomparable trial at times seemed like a sinking ship I was aboard.  And so for the first seven days of living in our new home, I grumbled like Israel.  I wanted to go back to Egypt.  My manna was not satisfactory. 

And then I came to my senses after buying a few storage bins and totes and some paint.  I could make this place home.  And not only would I make this place home but I would find joy in the limitations.  So, this is it, joy in the limitations.  And not only is it this but it is them.  I think there is a lot the Lord wants to do in us here and in the midst of being pruned and sanctified we have some neighbors we really like but who God loves more.  I hope you can come along with us on another Paine journey as we venture through, in, and around that stinky ol chicken coup!  

A New Thing

Los Olivos Hike 

Breath of fresh air

Remember not the former thing, nor consider the things of old. 

Behold I am doing a new thing; 

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? 

Once again we are moving! I didn't realize when I married Michael the transient nomadic adventurer would our surroundings be constantly changing.  Not to put all the blame on my husband, as my mom always said, "you get bored easily!"  Ironically both of our nature's are to seek the new, yet to be honest I was not excepting another move the first month of the new year, 2011.  But, this is where the Lord is bringing us, into another new season of transition.  I am reminded though, that my God is always constant and never changing, despite my ever changing circumstances.  

We have moved out of our little beach cottage because of Michael's mold allergies and have found another home in Arroyo Grande.  It reminds us of our first little place in Shell Beach when we first got married.  I know the Lord has great plans and purposes for us in our new home and ultimately Gods sovereignty is over this transition, not the mold.  He continually reminds me, my home is heaven, and to not store up treasures on earth but in heaven.  Every move, I release more of our earthly possessions and attachments, which to be honest is very liberating.  And the beauty of change is He changes us in the process. Oh the things I have been learning about myself this past month, quite humbling to say the least.  Yet I am refreshed this morning as I cast myself upon the throne of grace, petitioning for what I need in my weakness.  Not only is He doing a new thing around us, but in us.  And that is the hope that we cling to in the circumstance.  I have a long way to go, but Christ fills up what is lacking in me today. Yes, let it be!