Marianna Update
I’m long overdue for an email update.
Welcome to 2025. My last update was 2022, after I had gotten married.
It’s been a wild time.
January 7th, 2025
Dear friends and family!
It is a new season and God has been showing me so much. I’m coming into January with much expectation as well as the gravity of all the new roles and responsibilities I now have.
I’ve been hired on staff as the Children’s Director at Grace Church! This is huge for me, as I’ve always dreamed of Pastoring in some capacity- and now I’ll be in charge of the Children’s ministry. It does feel slightly daunting, but the previous Director created an incredible structure to start from.
I also am teaching Art Classes Wednesday and Thursday, at a Homeschool Co-Op called “Beyond the Books”, totaling my 4 classes, I have 60 kids.
This is also a dream come true, for I’ve always wanted to teach art to kids.
And lastly - I’ve been illustrating children’s books! “Don’t Leave the Coop!” by Victoria Reinke, “Chinchilla Adventures: Truffles Finds a Home by Diane Wilson”, “Come to the Table” by Yenh Mikolajewski and Kristen Adam, and lastly “Sock Finders” series by Wanda Boggs. All published and can be found on Amazon!! This is seriously a dream come true- illustrating children’s books!!
Obviously there’s a very big theme here: TEACHING, ART, and CHILDREN.
I’ve always felt like those were big goals of mine, and now here I am- doing them in various ways.
AND.. Connor and I bought a house. Our miracle house from the Lord.
Now.. how’d we get here?
Picture this, end of 2021 to 2023: I was desperate to leave my parents' basement. My mental stability was plummeting. Throughout that 1.5-2 year span I was honestly going through hell. And I feel like I’d have to qualify that statement with the appropriate circumstances… but I was just not having a good time. We had two deaths in the family, my community and friendship group/circles were non existent, I lived in a basement, and I worked suuuper part time (aka I had too much time on my hands), which lead to a lot of unhealthy and depressive behaviors. I was also still grieving all the relationships I felt I lost moving away from California, and that continued to feed the endless spiral of thoughts and negative narrative (including calling myself a loser). Moving states, churches/communities, getting married, all in a year is really hard.
I pressed on. Connor picked me up. The Lord met me, and delivered me, and waited. It’s hard to go alone to the Lord when you feel alone. And yet I tried to invite Him in. The choice of surrender is hard when the choice to sit and wallow and ruminate on negativity pulls you down into a hole. And yet God saw me. and yet he met me. So many times I’d get glimpses of encouragement, flashes of hope, and redemptive kisses to my heart that helped me grieve the losses.
I felt trapped, I healed, and then would get stuck again.
I cried out, “God get me out of this place. Free me.”
And then a word in reply from a speaker, a stranger, “He has a house for you”.
Hope flickered and I held on. I searched, I prayed, we prepared. We applied for a loan, we talked to a real estate agent, we looked for house…6 months I waited. 6 months I searched. Our budget was too low for most houses. We were looking almost exclusively at “fixer uppers”.
Oct. 22nd, a house. My dad found us a house, for sale by owner, As Is condition. It’s ours, in our price range, less than its worth (built in equity), and its ours. We moved in Dec. 16th.
Exhale. God, did you really do that? For me? You saw me struggling for air, drowning in the depths and you really said- let me provide for you. Let me be your dwelling place. Let me give you a place to dwell. Relief. Sanctuary. We had to work and fix it and clean it, but now I can confidently say its ours. And I know it was the Lord’s gift to me. My true heavenly groom. And my husband Connor has already put blood sweat and tears into this house, preparing a place for me.
Is this what it feels like to be treasured?
So it’s been a hard past 3 years. But God’s faithfulness has guided me, and I’m feeling more and more alive again.
I’m doing 3 jobs that I’m excited about, and I know there is more to come.
Thank You.
His beloved, Marianna McCall
