Moving Home
Sometimes a miracle from God doesn’t look like cancer being healed or someone being raised from the dead or a leg growing back. Sometimes a miracle from God is a person sending you a message on facebook to inform you there is a property available, or someone getting in touch with an old boss who manages to fill in gaps to suggest you are an excellent fit for the post, or a friend lending you enough money for you to make the move – even when it means they’re really going to miss you. Every step of the journey of our move was a miracle from God. And whilst we were going through stuff – it was hard, it was so hard because of what circumstances told us. But we never gave up on the dream, we were determined and stubborn and refused to let go of what we were praying for. At any time over 15 months we could’ve said it wasn’t meant to be. God would not have loved us any less and he would still have blessed us but we wouldn’t have been happy. See sometimes, the key to getting your miracle is perseverance and consistency. This is how the story goes . . .
My husband and I have been meaning to write down a full testimony of our move to Scotland – which I tried to do but it didn’t quite work out – the details were a bit all over the place. And the coherent tale was lost. So rather than do a full start to finish testimony I want to pick out the parts of the journey of moving our family to Scotland and encourage people to follow their dreams and trust God to make their hearts desires come true.
It was March 2020 and Covid-19 brought lockdown. My husband was working from home, our son was doing school at home and all playgroups and church services etc had shut down. It was then that my husband and I started to reassess what we wanted for our future. We had always had dreams of living in Scotland – but they had been a fanciful desire over a period of 20 years and holidays where we felt we left a bit of who we were and our hearts behind each time we had to leave. My husband was already looking for other work as his current work was becoming unbearable. We drew a line in the sand, so to speak, and decided that now was the time to really pursue a move to Scotland. We spoke to our son who was completely on board before we even finished asking him how he felt about the move. At this time we didn’t really ask God if this was the right move. Let me explain why. If you know God well and you know the Word then you will know that if you trust in Him and you are on a daily journey, in prayer and lifestyle then you will know that God gives us our hearts desires. He is the one that put those desires there in the first place. And so we went full throttle, understanding that if it was not of God then our desires to move would change as we continued in our daily relationship with Him.
We can spend too much time seeking God without action. This is of course not true in every situation. You need to really know God personally and take the whole of the Word in context, but for our situation this was true. We didn’t really seek God over the actual move to Scotland, but we did pray for jobs and his lead and everything to work out. We know God is outside of time and that He already had everything in place for us. From the time we first discussed moving to actually moving took around 15 months.
There were many things that tested how serious we were and how much we were willing to fight to obtain our hearts desire. My health was not good at the time, and although improved slightly, I’m still not 100% – I believe what I am dealing with is the onset of menopause which in and of itself doesn’t bother me. The symptoms however – well. I’m praying the doctors here can get some blood work done and sort it out. I just wanted to say that no matter what you are going through, be it sickness or financial issues or anything else, be careful not to make excuses and reasons why your dreams won’t work out. The lights of heaven do not go dim when God moves. God is the creator. The issues and challenges we face that seem insurmountable are a small thing for God. Instead of saying, we can’t move yet, I need to make sure my health is stable. I made sure I thanked God that he would make a way and that medical care is still available and will provide all I may need where we are going. I was not about to let my health be a reason why we couldn’t move – and that would’ve only been something I put there, not God.
The next step was obtaining a job for my husband. We had been looking for a while but shifted our focus to searching for jobs near Inverness. Now if we were looking for Edinburgh the amount of jobs available were huge. But our dream was specific – we wanted The Black Isle – it was where we wanted to plant ourselves, where we saw a better future for our children. Commutable to Inverness. And so the search began. We made 3 or 4 applications but nothing successful. This would be around September time of 2020. I knew in order to get a good credit report in order to obtain a rental in the Black Isle it would have to be later than October. This was because we were declared bankrupt 6 years previous and October 2020 would be when it was cleared off our records. October came and my husbands credit rating shot back up. We had dearly wanted to be in Scotland before the Christmas time but we continued on.
From June 2020 my husband was demanded back onto the school premises for work. He worked hard and struggled for holidays, in a school over the summer period when everyone else was home. They had to get the school ready for September. At this point we decided to pull our son out of school and homeschool him. It was only ever going to be until we arrived in Scotland but with the Covid-19 situation and the way his school was going we didn’t feel secure in him being on the premises. Anyways, back to my husband – and work. At some point in February or March he was marched off the premises under accusations (half of which were later proved to be unfounded). He was on paid suspension. He was under a lot of stress. Not knowing why or when he would be called in for investigation. He was also told not to discuss the matter with anyone else or this could be a further disciplinary issue. I won’t go into the whole issue – it was long and drawn out and due processes were not followed. We could have taken them to court and won – but we decided to leave, bless them and move on. We had prayed that my husband would be released from his job through the disciplinary action as we just wanted out. It didn’t happen. He had to return to work under massive surveillance. His immediate line manager had no idea what the whole thing was about and was disgusted at how it was handled. The point I wanted to make here is sometimes we don’t get what we pray for. We had prayed for my husband to be released of this job. But, God knows best, he knows what we need and how things needed to go to work out for his own and for that we are in awe and so so thankful. If my husband had not returned to work, his line manager would not have been able to organise a reference for his current post. This could have seen him lose the offer of a job here. So when you pray and you don’t get what you asked for, remember God is for you and is working things out for your best interests. It will work out. Stay close to Him and have faith.
This was also true when it came to us searching for a rental on the Black Isle. It was an arduous process. Lots of people applying for the same property, and the landlord chooses who they would like. Some agencies require we actually view the property so we made trips from England to Scotland and back again within 24 hours. Partly because my husband’s line manager at his old job arranged for him to take the days without the powers that be knowing, but this meant he had to be in work again the day after. The first property we viewed was not what it was advertised at and the agents were particularly useless. We missed out on others just because the person before us to enquire had snapped it up. Then there was a 2 bed apartment that looked promising. We were very hopeful and put everything into our application. It was not what we had prayed for – as in we wanted plenty of storage and 3 bedrooms and we questioned whether we should make do just to get us in Scotland and then look further. The landlord chose someone else. Things were getting desperate. My husband had the job offer in Inverness, but we needed to move in order to take the position. On advice of his new boss we posted to a facebook group to ask if anyone knew of anywhere. A lovely lady sent me a direct message to let me know they would be vacating their property in June. She sent pictures and informed me who the agency was. So I chased the agents, literally. Pushed for a viewing. We had been told that our rental in England had to be given notice on the 25th as that is when our rent was paid. Our viewing for this house would be 4 days before that date. We had to view, apply, be successful within 4 days. It got to the last minute and we hadn’t heard back from the agency. The letting agents in England gave us a days grace to let them know if we were giving notice of moving out. This is unheard of, but I believe God put it on their hearts to do this for us. We got the house. Things moved pretty swift from then. God prepared this place for us, it had everything we had asked Him for: Storage, 3 bedrooms, spacious, large garden. We may have forgot to pray for a dishwasher – but he came through above and beyond what we could’ve imagined. I believe God had this place set up ready for us way before we even made plans to move. It needed action on my part to receive it. I had to mail agents. I had to phone them and chase them. I had to search for property. So there is action required on our parts. But at the right time, when God says go, everything will fit right into place as it is supposed to be.
The job my husband has been given is the best possible we could have hoped for. We prayed for a job in Inverness with less stress. Currently he is working from home on a permanent basis, there is talks of going into the office for 1 day a week but not any time soon. If he does more than his 35 hours a week he can get flexi leave at a day a month. There is a big family first policy within the team so when we had meetings for school for our son or the emergency dentists etc there was no question about leaving early and making time up later. There is no stress. There are deadlines but without the pressure. No climbing through roof space to lay wires, no auditing every piece of equipment in a major school, no ripping out whole computer labs and moving equipment across campus. And the team he is working with is amazing and lovely and supportive. It is also more money and space to grow in increments on the scale too. We only prayed for a job for my husband that would provide for our needs, we didn’t really make any more requests than that. God however, worked as only He can to provide so much more above and beyond anything we could have possibly imagined or hoped for.
One of the major issues we faced was obtaining money enough to move. We had a deposit and rent on a house to make and petrol and moving van costs etc etc. We are blessed with many good friends. One lady, gifted us £1000 to help us make the move. Another friend lent us £5000 (against my husband’s pension pot which he gets in November 2022) to enable us to move. We didn’t ask them for this. God led them to give and without either we would not have been able to move and do what we have done. Everything worked together at just the right time, all orchestrated by God.
It is all still so very surreal to us. We actually get to live on the Black Isle. We had wanted to live in the same village we had spent countless holidays in but the local Academy had no computing courses at all. The Academy for where we now live have computing courses – they do computer science, digital media, computer games design etc. All of which our son is taking as he sees a future in games design. Had we not been placed here this would not have been possible.
In Scotland where you live is where you go to school. The catchment school for our daughter is not one we liked. Many people in the area don’t like it either. By chance one night we took a shortcut and happened upon a small village school and nursery. We got her in the nursery and hopefully she will be able to attend the school there next August. The staff are amazing. She’s very attached to one of the staff members and if she ever has a day off our daughter is not happy about going in. She’s making some good friends and is extremely chatty to staff.
The next step is to find a church to call home. We still tune in to churches from England that we called home for a while. We watch our usual church services in Dumfries (Glen Aros Church) and we have connections in Elgin that we will be chasing up. Restrictions are different here. But our relationship with God just gets better and better and although we miss the corporate worship and house groups and friends living close by, we are in awe of everything God has done and God is doing in our lives.
UPDATE: I had written this testimony not long after we settled in our new home back in 2021. It is now late 2024. So much has happened in the last 3 years. Our son is now taking Sound Production at college – God moved here again to make this possible. Our daughter is involved in theatre and ballet and loving life and we are planted in a local church and growing community of believers with good friends who are becoming family to us. The move north was the best decision we ever made and it is amazing to look back in hindsight and see how God provided for us at each and every step. He had provided before we even knew what to ask for.