The Next Step for the O'Neills

Tomorrow is a big day. It marks a significant ending and beginning for our family.

Tomorrow is Tim's last day on the road for a while... and for those of you who know him, know us, have prayed for him, worked with him, or journeyed with us through any portion of the past four years - I wanted to share a bit of what God's been up to lately in our world.

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Fourteen years ago, my husband responded to a call. It was a call to ministry, even though it wasn't serving a local church. It was a call to serve God's people, even though it doesn't say that on his resume.

It was a call to travel. To tour. To work alongside Christian artists, musicians, managers, bands, and be part of an industry that seeks to serve, impact the Kingdom, and make disciples... through the power and ministry of worship and music.

For the past fourteen years, he has spent at least a third of his nights sleeping on a tour bus. He has lived out of a suitcase, has associated dinner time with "catering", and has accumulated so many t'shirts, you wouldn't believe it if i told you the number.

His work has taken him to each of the 48-connected US states, multiple times over - as well as at least 10 different countries. He remembers which arena he was in on March 4, 2004 and could tell you (to this day) how to get there from the interstate, and who played, and what the bus food was that night.

When I first saw Tim, we were in one such arena. The stage set was transitioning between songs, and this (amazingly cute) guy was running quickly and calmly through the crowd to jump on stage and fix a guitar.

He was all in. I noticed it, from the first moment I saw him. He's been in, every day since.

He's loved every minute of it.

But now, the Lord has given Tim an opportunity to respond to that call in a different way, and shift our family in a slightly different direction. He'll still be partnering with the Christian music industry and utilizing all his experience, but he'll be doing it to help address the issue of childhood poverty. He'll be working with Compassion International, which is a child sponsorship organization that partners with the local church all across the world to care for children in poverty, sharing the message of Christ and addressing both the emotional and physical needs of those children.

To say we are excited about this next season, is an understatement. There are no words.

But there will be changes, for sure - and also, a fair amount of goodbyes.

The reason why any place or job is considered "home" is because of the familiarity, and the people there - and the road is its own unique routine and community. Touring is a lifestyle, a way of processing decisions, a tightly-integrated network of people with a language all their own.

We will miss it.

We'll each have to form new habits. Many of our daily routines, as well as certain dynamics of our marriage, have been positioned for four years on a particular axle - and now that axle is changing. It will be a learning curve for both of us, in countless ways - but for Tim especially.

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And as I watch him prepare for this life-changing transition... As a wife, what can I say? How proud I am of him, for his (continued) faithfulness to this call... How grateful to the Lord I am, for bringing my husband home much earlier than we planned. How amazed I am at Tim's tenacity and his courage in taking this next step forward for our growing family.

And how much I understand, what it's all meant to him.

All the 4:15 a.m. lobby calls, the amazing people he's gotten to meet, the nights spent on the sides of icy interstates, the gorgeous places he's traveled to, the powdered eggs, the promoters (good and bad), the chirping radios, the meet and greets, the bus food, the airport terminals, the hundreds of miles walked through arena concourses, the free concerts, the frequent flyer miles, the lanyards, the thousands of bottles of water, and the opportunity to nightly watch people's faces in the audience while they're worshipping God.

For every bit of it, we give thanks. For the next season ahead... we are excited, and ready!

For the brothers who have lived life with Tim while he's been on the road, I pray the Lord's blessings on you and your families. You've kept him sane, and you've kept me from worrying :) For the "industry wives" who have so often supported me in Tim's absence, I pray that God continues to bring friendships and encouragement and coffee-breaks and community directly to your doorstep, as you faithfully continue to walk this road with your husbands.

We're honored to have met with so much support as Tim has considered and accepted this new role. And although we are (DEFINITELY) looking forward to being home together more in this next season of response, we are confident and excited about the fact that we are still responding to the same call he answered fourteen years ago - to which we now both emphatically say again as one: "Yes, Lord!"

Thank you to everyone who has prayed for us. We've known this day would come, but we certainly didn't know when. We appreciate your continued prayers, as we take this next step into this new life. To our Savior, we give thanks... Great things He has done!

Now, all we need to do is decide what we're going to do with all these pieces of luggage... and all these road cases... and all these lanyards...

And all these t-shirts ;)