He Knows

"Love - 15", "30 - All" "40 - 15"....tennis scores....I heard them in my SLEEP this weekend!  That is because we were blessed, and I mean BLESSED to play right here at home, at the Greenbrier Resort, in a United States Tennis Association tournament all weekend long. And by we, I mean Baby Girl played, Momma just did what Momma does best, that is, CHEER.  Except that I am a football Momma too , and you just can't cheer at a tennis match like you can a football game..takes some getting used to I tell ya!

Baby Girls Motto:)

 Everyone here seems to have their own opinion about the Greenbrier Resort.  Say what you will about it, I may be more than a little infatuated with it, despite the fact that it goes against every single thing we moved here to simplify.  Because of Baby Girls love of tennis, we spend a lot of time at the Greenbrier during the week and each time we check in at the gates, it never escapes me what God already knew when He brought us here.

The Greenbrier Resort - one of my favorite places to be here in WV!

More then several years ago now, New England winters were killing us.  We had over 75 inches of snow and something just no longer felt right about our location.  So we began praying, "God, if you want us to move, you will have to show us where and let us know it is right." 

Months went by and we had nothing to go on.  I knew I wanted a small town with low crime.  My husband knew he wanted a small, New England looking town with much less snow than what we were dealing with.  We knew Florida was out because we had both lived there and neither of us really wanted to live there again.  We were afraid Georgia or South Carolina might be a little too much like Florida, but we knew we wanted to stay on the East Coast to be close to our families.

North Carolina looked like a pretty good option and I began searching an area around Asheville.  We even thought we would consider Virginia maybe.  In doing my research we really liked places like Charlottesville and Christiansburg.  But each time I would look more into any of these places, the craziest thing would happen!!!  This little town in West Virginia would pop up on my search results. I noticed there was little to no crime..and snow???  Maybe 20 inches per year compared to the 75 + we were accustomed to.   We could certainly handle that!  The problem was, we had nothing else to go on and, because of my husbands job at the time, we were in no position to just pick up and take a trip to WV to check it out. The Yankee wasn't really overly convinced anyway, but he did say, "Do a Google image search and if it looks like a small little New England town, we will check it out further."

Imagine my excitement when I did that search and it looked EXACTLY like a small New England town.  I am pretty sure hubby thought I had fallen and injured myself or something the way I screamed like a banshee for him to come look at the computer screen.  He took one look and said "Call the first real estate agents name you see and get more information."  He didn't have to tell me twice.

Her name was Kathy.  I called and told her my name and where I was calling from. 

"WHERE are you calling from?" She asked me to repeat the name of the town.

"You won't believe this," she said, "But my husband and I moved here from a few towns over 35 years ago to raise our own kids and we have never regretted it."

Further conversation went on to reveal her husband and mine had the same first name,her husband was ten years older than her (my husband is ten years older than me), and two of her children were even born in the same hospital my husband was born in.  I mean, REALLY, what on earth are the chances of that!!!  Here I was calling this woman over 750 miles away and she was from Massachusetts!!! I could not wait until he got home from work to tell him about THIS!  I just knew it was where we were supposed to be.

 My excitement spilled over as I rushed to tell him all Kathy had shared with me.  How could it not be as obvious to him as it was to me that this was where we were supposed to go?  The only problem was, I was met with complete silence!  Because of everything we had been through years before, I had learned that the only way I was going to find out God's true will in this matter was to stay quiet myself.  And I did.  Days went by and my husband never said a word.  I prayed and prayed..not to get to move to West Virginia, but I prayed that God would reveal His will through my husband. Ladies, God can and will use our husbands in miraculous ways if we will only pause and listen!


It is difficult to recall how many days went by, but one day, out of the blue, he came home from work and called us all into the great room.  With a silly toddler boy on one knee, his first grade princess on the other and me standing in front of him, he looked at all of us and said, "I have a question for you guys....WHO WANTS TO MOVE TO WEST VIRGINIA?"  Though our closest neighbors were really far away, I am fairly sure they heard our entire family erupt into cheers that evening.

The arrangements slowly unfolded and one year later I was on the phone with Kathy, without whom none of this would have happened, trying to find a place to rent in a town we still had not been too.  Now THAT is faith!  I had found two places that seemed ok, but you know what it is like when you just don't have that peace about something..neither of these places gave me peace at all, and yet I was at a point where I had to give them an answer the following day as to which one I was going to choose.  Still without an ounce of peace that night, Kathy called me out of no where.

"Did you answer either of those places yet?" she asked.  When I told her no she went on.

"I drove home from work today a way I never go and I saw a "For Rent" sign, so I pulled in.  Turns out it was my sons best friend from high school.  Don't say no right away, it is a renovated barn and I think you are going to love it."

And I knew.  I didn't need to see the pictures the landlord was going to send to me.  We had been praying for the perfect place to rent until we decided if we liked the town enough to stay and I just knew, site unseen, we had found it.

Eventually the day came when it was time to drive here and prepare the barn for The Yankees homecoming (stay tuned for this story, because it will be coming this week some time probably!).  We came through town and I could tell I loved it, then passed some amenities that it was nice to see we had, then headed about a mile out into the country.  We turned a corner and this is what I saw...

Now I would not be able to say if this site does to ya'll what it does to me, but let me tell you, had I not been following Kathy, I would  have literally pulled off the side of the road and sobbed.  I gasped so loud that my kids were worried that there was something wrong with me, "What is it Momma?" "It's just that God is sooooo good!" I told them.

It was all I could do to hold in my tears of joy as Kathy introduced me to our new landlords and they showed the kids and I around the barn and around the property.  And this view?  The first thing I saw when we rounded the corner?  It actually ended up being our view from our kitchen window!!  After they all left I sat on our back deck (with an equally gorgeous view, only this one involved cows, really, really close by!) and cried and thanked God for bringing us to this amazing place.  Our life of simplicity in the country had begun.

Fast forward to now, and we have a little tennis player on our hands.  Ok, she's not so little any more, but let a Mom hold on to her babies for as long as she can.  I don't remember ever seeing a tennis court in Massachusetts.  I know they were there, they must have been.  But K had loved tennis since she was tiny.  We have little bitty tennis pictures of her playing with Papaw in Florida, her face beat red from the hot Florida sun, hair in pigtails, tennis racquet in hand, her "serious" tennis face that she still wears today.  And we come here, and what happens  in this little teeny-tiny town?  She gets to play on a facility several days a week that hosts Tommy Haas, Pete Sampras, and even McEnroe for crying out loud!  She gets to be trained by Jenny, formerly the assistant WVU Womens coach, and Terry, who was the head coach at WVU for 15 years! It's amazing the way they have taken her under their wing. She would not have had this opportunity if we had stayed put and not listened to Gods promptings.  We had to move to the middle of no where for her dreams to come true.

I don't love the Greenbrier for its pretense and for what it means to some people. I love the Greenbrier because each time I check in at those gates, I am flooded with the gratitude over the plans God was waiting to reveal for us.  We just had to ask, He already knew! And He is waiting for you to ask today..whatever decision you need to make, big or small, just ask, sit back and listen...it's amazing what He can do when we get quiet enough to listen to His direction!

Jeremiah 29:11
¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (NIV)

Til Next Time!
God Bless and Love Everyone!