moving in a new direction

That photo was taken almost a year ago, after I had begged David to let me use him as a model to play with some shooting techniques. We had reached a point in our photo session where somebody was getting a little restless. Oh well, he got cooperative husband points. 🙂 And he’ll get even more for letting me share it with the world, because I thought it was appropriate for this post.
I’ve had to wait a while to write this. Sorry for the vague comments I’ve been dropping around here for the last month. Nothing bad would have happened if I’d spilled the beans to the internet about what’s been happening in our life lately, but we’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for things to fall into place, so I guess I felt like a little more waiting couldn’t hurt.
After all that waiting, we are moving in a new direction, or at least continuing to move in the direction we started off in a few years ago. We were stalled a few times, delayed once or twice, clueless and lost quite a bit, and just generally in a holding pattern most of the time. And now something that was established before time began, and is insignificant to most of the world, but incredibly precious to me, is beginning to become known. Today is David’s last day working for the railroad. Monday morning will begin a brand new chapter in our lives. For those of you who care for the whole story, here it is.
A little over four years ago, David and I had been dating for enough time to know that it would become/was becoming serious, and we would probably be planning a wedding in the near future. We were approaching the time when you “just know.” So after a little thought, but really not much agonizing, David decided to move to Lincoln, where I was still in school. He began a long process of commuting to Omaha every day for work. At first it was a little tiring, but it seemed pretty manageable. We got engaged and got married, all without much planning as far as where I would get a job, if we’d move, etc. After a few months of being married, we decided the commute needed to go. It cost him two and a half extra hours of each day, crammed our evenings into a smaller crawl space, and left him more tired than necessary every day after work. So we started asking the question: Omaha or Lincoln? I was freelancing and it seemed obvious to almost everyone we talked to about it that we should just pack up and move to Omaha. I could get a job there somewhere and we’d just start a new adventure. Guess who was not stoked about this idea? Me. And David, too. We just never felt comfortable about the idea of moving there. Nothing wrong with the place, it just seemed like it wasn’t us.

Insert several hears of hemming and hawing over “the decision”. I got a job in Lincoln after the first year or so of thinking. Lots of people asked what we were going to do. We never had an answer. We just sat in limbo for the longest time. I was pretty unhappy. Let me make it very clear, here, that my dissatisfaction was not in any way directed at David. I was hoping in God, asking him to speak to us, praying for direction, and He chose to be silent. I think I was listening for His voice, but for whatever reason, I could not hear it. He was either choosing to make me wait or I was not willing to hear his quiet voice, even though I desperately wanted it. So I was frustrated, confused, and drew away from God repeatedly, refusing to hope in something I didn’t believe He had promised.
Over time, we started to feel almost certain that we would end up in Lincoln. Nothing cemented it for us, but everything pointed there. We are in love with our church and the community we have there, we have family there, my job (which I love) is there. A few opportunities for jobs for David came up, but always kind of trailed off into nothing. Until a few weeks ago, when a position came up that caught his eye. The same day it was posted, we met some friends from our church who we barely know, but one of them happens to work at the company with the opening. In the same department. For the same boss. Strange coincidental things just started happening, and happening fast, that led to a phone interview, then a formal interview, then a job offer. Yikes. It is still really overwhelming to think of all that God did for us in a few short weeks. We didn’t have a clear answer about what to do, even after the offer. I’m not going to get all into deep details here, but we were stuck, and a few truths came bursting through the silence, and God spoke clearly to us.
I had been focused on “hearing” from God. I wanted some kind of divine revelation about turning to the right or the left, telling me which way to go. I was firmly planted in my “listening” stance, and I didn’t want to budge without confirmation, one way or the other. Putting it bluntly, I didn’t want to have to do anything in faith. Fear of disappointment and regret left us terrified to hope, and resistant to taking a step full of trust. Friends, God was kindly and lovingly holding his hand out, desiring that we move toward him – not in the direction of a job or a life we built in the clouds of our imaginations, but toward him, regardless of what that meant for our circumstances. I say he did this lovingly, because in contrast, it would have been uncaring for him to let us keep our firm grip on our idols as we barreled ahead toward life and the next big thing. And it felt pretty good to let those things go and just take a step and feel our deep, deep need of Him. I pray we don’t lose that awareness any time soon. It hurts and it’s scary, but you know it is good.

So David took a job here in Lincoln. It’s totally scary. Everything looks great, feels right, seems good, but we still have to move toward lots of unknowns and as creatures who are generally resistant to change, this is difficult. I can’t even say right now that we’re elated, or planning celebratory parties, or feeling all our burdens lifted. But we’re moving in this new direction and it’s requiring a lot more trust. Pray for us! Pray for David on Monday morning when he literally has to take new steps into new places. P.S., I haven’t said it enough in this post, but he’s wonderful and amazing, and I’m so proud of him for putting up with my discontentment for so long and eventually pushing me out of it and encouraging me and being solid and unwavering throughout this whole thing.

Congrats, David, on the new job, but more importantly, thank you for helping me trust God as our life unfolds.

This post totally turned into a mini novel, but that’s ok. I couldn’t not write about something this big that God’s doing in our lives in the place where I publicly share our life. So thanks for reading it. If you’re wondering what I meant by this being something that was planned before existence, this is what I meant:

“[God] himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’” Acts 17:24-28