One afternoon in early September, my husband called me while I was at Walmart. I answered the phone and immediately knew something was wrong by the sound of his voice. “Is everything okay?” I asked. “Um. Not really. I just got laid off.” My stomach dropped. I left my cart right where it was in the store and drove home, praying and praying that things would be okay. This is the story of how we dug down deep and made it through.
You may be thinking, “Okay…people get laid off all the time.” Well, at the the time when he was laid off, I was unemployed too. I’d been applying for jobs for close to eight weeks with no luck. As we both faced our very unknown future, we had a decision to make. Do we stay in Houston? Do we apply for jobs elsewhere? We had an apartment lease and contracts with electricity and cable companies.
We decided to apply for jobs in a few major cities, and we would go wherever one of us got a job first.
We both knew deep down that we wanted to be in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. We had close friends and family up there, the weather was much nicer, and honestly we were pretty lonely in Houston. In six months, we had people over at the apartment three times.
We began to review our finances and seriously discuss the idea of moving.
We did the math on what it would cost to break contracts.
We could do it. As Andrew liked to put it, “It wasn’t going to be fun, but we could do it.” I’ll be the first to tell you that the financially smart decision would have been to stay in Houston until the end of our lease and not break contracts. That was the safe plan of action. It was comfortable and easy. But we also both knew that this was our shot to move to where we wanted to be. Six months from now, when our lease would have been up, one or both of us likely would have been employed.
I prayed and prayed, telling God, “If this is Your plan for us, then we’re all for it.”
This was our shot.
And we took it.
Moving to DFW is the best decision we’ve made together (aside from getting married 😉 ) We both love our jobs, we have friends and family nearby, and we love our little town. We can see ourselves settling down here and raising a family. Sometimes I look around and I can’t believe that life can be this good. We are so incredibly blessed. God delights in seeing His children happy, and I’m certain he’s delighted when he looks over us.
I’m writing all of this to say that if you want a change in your life, if you want things to be different and if you’re not happy where you are, then make a decision.
Decide to go after your dream job. Go on a road trip. Go back to school. Move to a different place. Go on a study abroad trip.
Going out of your comfort zone can be scary. Leaving what you know is scary. But you’ll never know unless you try. This world has so much to offer. This is your life. You only get one.
Thanks for reading,
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