Housing found & My hero
A speech from my 14-yr old daughter
Housing Found
In early 2021, we sold our home just outside the Seattle area. Since then, we’ve been waiting for God to reveal where He would have us to go next. I expected an answer within weeks, which turned into months, and eventually years.
Two months ago, His answer finally came. We signed papers on our new 40-acre property yesterday!
In many ways, it’s been a long 3+ years. In others, it’s been a breath. I am not the same person, praise be to God. Oh the great and many flaws that this time exposed. The immaturities, shortcomings, lovelessness, and following after strange spirits. James’ words are so true — we are led away by our own desires, and I’ve felt this truth during the waiting period.
By God’s grace, He reveals and eradicates those desires, conforming and transforming them to this end — purity. And to the ultimate end — all praise to the glory of His grace, who purchased us and redeemed us, a people for Himself, eager to do good works.
The 3+ years has been about a house, and not about a house. Such are the higher than us ways of God.
A few weeks ago, our 14-yr old daughter surprised* us with a speech — retelling God’s answer to prayer far better than I could have done. Her words are a perfect example of His higher ways in the midst of our waiting.
Whatever the delay, God has ordained it as a means to produce Himself in you. Oh, to be like Christ, and eventually to be face to face with Him. He is worth the wait, however long it takes.
You’ll find her speech below, word for word, without alteration.
In love,
Derek
*Surprised is an understatement. We score these speeches as they are a part of our homeschooling curriculum and so my wife and I had pencil to paper, listening intently, without any idea as to the subject of her talk. Neither of us had helped her and she didn’t consult either of us when writing it. As the speech unfolded, I really was shocked. What an answer to prayer! Just months earlier I had written this prayer in my journal:
“May our story bear witness that You are a God who not only leads us out but also brings us in. Who both delivers and settles. That we who follow are not perpetually wandering in circles, but are placed, planted, and firmly rooted. For Your name’s sake and for my family’s sake.”
My Hero
Rhetoric Ceremonial Oratory
A. Gillette
4.19.24
For this ceremony, I was asked to praise a hero of mine. I began thinking, who are my heroes? Who do I look up to? I sifted through some of the great men of history. Ulysses S. Grant a general in the Civil War, George Washington the first president of the United States, Albert Einstein, ingenious physicist, and C.S Lewis, profound writer, to name a few. Yet I brushed these all aside, for though they were all colossal men in history, I didn’t want to end up copying all the praise everyone has ever written about them. I needed someone who I knew personally, not someone I had to read all about to get the facts that everyone knows already. And recently, through a major fulfillment of patience and a long period of waiting, I came to see someone very close to me in a new light. Their strength, their leadership, and their patience, especially when things tended to be complicated and frustrating. This man led me, my siblings, and my mother down a path of perseverance, not looking back in regret, but looking forward to the will of the Lord. This man can be no other than my father.
Four years ago, my family sold our home in western Washington and moved in with my great-grandpa. We lived with him for three years before both my mother and father felt that the Lord was telling them to go. So we did. We left and stayed in varying amounts of months in Boise Idaho, Sisters Oregon, and Spokane Washington. We searched for houses along the way. The first one didn’t work, the second didn’t work, but the third one seemed more promising. We had good conversations with both the realtor and the owners, yet in the end, it too failed. We found a fourth house but it yet again was futile. Offer after offer, nothing seemed to be working. I had begun to get used to the offers falling through, but my father didn’t give up. When the offers failed, they left him hanging. Did he get frustrated? Sure he did, he’s only human. Truth is, we all got frustrated at one point or another. But what matters is that he didn’t despair, he got back on his feet and prayed. Over and over again. He prayed, he listened, he searched.
Then came an unexpected call. Remember the realtor at the third property? He contacted us and said he’d like to sell us his own property. He didn’t have it on the market, but would sell it to us if we were interested. Let’s pause there for a moment. Like, come on! How awesome is that! Here was a man we had met briefly a few months ago and the Lord put it in his heart to sell his property to us. God knew. He not only creates all the puzzle pieces, but puts them together to His will and for His glory. I cannot praise my father without praising the Lord, for the Lord works through my father.
Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that some thing is more important than fear.” We didn’t have a home for 9 months. At times, we easily could have feared that we would never leave this state of limbo. We easily could have succumbed to lost hopelessness. But my father knew that the Lord would not leave us. As it says in Deuteronomy 31:6, “Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.” My father knew that trusting in the Lord and His plans was more important than fear.
Under the circumstances, in his position, could I have done the same? If I’m being honest, probably not. Which is why I’m so thankful to have him in my life as a figure of leadership and virtue. I look up to his courage, his prudence, and his wisdom. Yet through all those virtues, I admire his godliness. His attentiveness to the Lord and the Lord’s will for our lives.
For this ceremony, I was asked to praise a hero of mine. I know now who my hero is. Not any of the great men in history, but a great man in my life. My father is, and always will be, my hero.