The Story of How I Decided to Leave Everything I Knew and Move in Pursuit of God (Part 3)

I'm currently in the midst of relocating from Georgia to Ohio, so I thought it was a fitting time to look back at another time in my life where God moved me across the country: I was 24 and single, and moved from my hometown in Ohio to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I knew one person in the entire state.

Earlier this week, I shared the first part and second part of my story about this leap of faith. If you missed it, click here to read Part 1. And click here to read Part 2. Today I am sharing the last and final bit, Part 3, in my story about how this all unfolded. 

Back in Ohio, I received word that I was invited back for a second interview. I ended up having to reschedule because the original date they wanted me to arrive fell during the week I had already arranged to chaperone a youth group trip. (As it turns out, this was the youth group trip where I got to know the man who would someday become my husband!) Fortunately they were flexible and were able to push the interview back another week.

I remained calm and at peace with the situation—until the night before the interview. At that point I had what I’d probably compare to an anxiety attack although I have nothing to compare it to. My heart was racing, I was short of breath, I was hungry, I was thirsty… I tried to pray through it but nothing worked. I barely slept and the next morning, I was still anxious the whole drive up. Even when I went into the interview, the anxiety was still right there, punching me in the face.

Looking back, I really feel like it was the devil’s one last-ditch effort to psych me out and pull me away from God’s plan. Because at one point, I really just wanted to call them and tell them to cancel the interview. And what was I afraid of? Of getting the job? How ridiculous is that?

It wasn’t until about halfway through the interview that I regained composure and the anxiety left me. By that point, the anxiety had already made me mess up a bit more than I normally would have so I figured that if I was able to get the job even after that–admittedly, not my greatest interview–then I knew God was in on it. I walked out of the interview at peace with whatever would happen.

The next Monday, I received an email offering me the position. Just. Like. That. I couldn’t believe it, that it all had really, actually happened. That God had planted this desire in my heart and arranged everything to come together and then he actually gave it to me.

As I considered all of that, I knew that I had to accept the job, even though by this point my friend had realized she didn’t want to move to Grand Rapids and I’d be doing it alone. Sure, there was uncertainty but I had seen so much of God’s goodness already, how I could expect any less of it in the future? God truly was so powerful in the knitting together of the situation, that I could not deny it. I could not turn away from it, from him.

I wanted this to be one of those times where I heeded and obeyed God, in hopes that doing so would make it easier for me to continue to heed and obey him in the future. Because I didn’t want to look back and say the only time I really knew I was listening to God and God was with me was when I was 24. I didn’t want to turn it down out of fear and run the chance of deadening my heart to listening to him in the future, as well. That would be so disappointing and heartbreaking.

So, with that awareness, I accepted the job.

Looking back over that situation, it is so encouraging to me to see how God guided the whole process, especially given that I was just starting to flourish in my faith. It was one of the first times that I tried to start to listen to him. And he met me in those places! There were many places along the way where I could have doubted more, where I could have ignored God’s still small voice. But I didn’t because he heaped grace upon grace, peace upon peace all around me.

What another testimony of his lavish love for even the least of these.

(If you want to read more about how God continued to provide for me once I did move to Michigan, you can read more about that here. And, a perennial favorite is my series about how my husband and I met and fell in love, Our Love Story.)

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