Seven years.

I moved to Florida with my family to start a church.
Sound a little weird? Yeah, it was.
Mostly because, like a lot of people, I always thought about churches as having been there forever, not having been started by a single family.
Nonetheless, my parents felt called to a little town named Melbourne Beach.
A town we had never heard of.
A town where we didn’t know a single soul.
Sound crazy?
It was.
But I was only 14, so it didnt matter that I thought it was crazy, I had to move with my parents anyway.
Sometime I’ll write about the whole story, about how the whole thing came about, because it’s really cool.
But today I will just say a few things.
It was horrible.
The the really, awful, terrible kind of horrible.
I remember saying goodbye my entire family who lived in Tennessee.
Saying goodbye to my best friends who would all be starting high school together.
I remember my dad waking me up the morning of, and not wanting to leave so badly that I cried and kicked my bed out of frustration.
I remember crying the two day drive here.
Pulling up to my new house and being devastated because I had hoped it would feel like home, and it didn’t.
And then, a few weeks later, my dad announced that we were going to start having church.
In my house.
With myself, my parents, and my brother.
Right.
Because that’s totally normal.
It was terrible and it was awkward, but you know what?
Those are some of the most precious memories that I have.
Why?
Because last Sunday, there were 900 people at that church.
At the church that started in my living room.
The church that slowly grew from a house to hotels to a middle school to a building.
The church that my parents, me and my brother set up and tore down each Sunday.
That 4-900 period has not been easy.
There have been tears and struggles and hard times, like there are with anything worth having.
People have come and gone.
People have said terrible things and spewed lies about my family and church.
There were times where friends were few and far between.
But being able to be apart of the most amazing adventure with my family? I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.
I know a lot of you who read my blog don’t believe in God (and that’s okay, I’m glad you’re here anyway.)
But I have to say.
Even if I didn’t believe in God in the slightest bit before moving here,
I think I would have to believe in Him now.
I would have to believe in a God that loved the people of Brevard county so incredibly much, that He called a little family of four from Memphis to come share His love with them.
I would have to believe in a God who took four people and turned them into nine hundred.
I would have to believe in a God that kept his promises. That moved heaven and earth to provide a place for these nine hundred people to hear about His name and grow in Him.
I would have to believe in a God that has a plan, because there’s no way any of us could have planned this.
Today I am so incredibly overwhelmed with thankfulness that I have a God who chose me to ride along on this great adventure.
I will never know why He chose my family, but He did.
And some really amazing things have happened, because He had a plan all along.

Happy seven years, Coastline.