Our story

My husband and I married young. We met just days before my husband graduated highschool. I was 16 when we met. He was 18.

We began dating when I was 17 and not too shortly after that we left for college. I was 18 and he was 20 as we headed off to a Christian college. I came in as a freshman and he transferred in as a junior.

At the time, we were in love, and knew we would be getting married soon. But we had moved 8 hours away from our family. We were sad, but knew it was only for a short time, and before anyone knew it we would be moving back again.

Two months later we were engaged, and 7 months later, at the ripe old ages of 19 and 21, we were married.

Life changes

A year later my husband graduated college at 22, got a great job and starting working towards his career.

At this point we started getting home sick. We started dreaming about starting a family, and knew that we needed to get back home to live near family.

We began activelty looking for a way for my husband to get a job near our family. I was even ready to drop my classes and finish up at a different school, or not finish. I didn’t really care. I was just ready to get back near family. But the months dragged on.

No job. No hopes to transfer.

We realized how lucky and fortunate we were that my husband was well on his way to building his career. Well, not lucky, it was all by God’s hand! Many people we know who are graduating college right now have no job prospects, and simply cannot figure out a way to start a career.

And here my husband is in his career, doing something that he loves, and moving up the ladder, and God completely handed it to him.

So we took a step back, recognized God’s hand working (though we couldn’t see the outcome yet), and tried to make peace with where God had us. I made peace that I would finish my degree and THEN maybe God would move us.

So a year later I finished my bachelor’s degree (I completed my degree in 3 years, Praise the Lord!!), and then my wheels started turning. Okay, Lord! I’m done with school! We are ready to move now please. But no, God had other plans for us.

Trusting God through challenges

I started working full time the week I graduated college (again PRAISE the Lord), and got a promotion of sorts a few months later. Then I entered what I call “the dark period”. I started a new job that I had a really hard time at to say the least. Four days out of the week I barely made it to my car before bursting into tears, calling my husband in a whirl of emotions that he couln’t understand, and start to drive home already dreading having to go to work the next day.

I was in a whirl of anxiety and near depression. I KNEW there was a reason for the turmoil and I read stories in scripture like Job and memorized scripture to help (Luke 12:22-31), and God helped me to break my sin and deal with my anxiety. But I still had trouble with it up until my last day of work.

The Lord was gracious and led me to a new fabulous job.  After 3 1/2 months of interviews I started a new job that I love!

Finally my anxiety broke and I could be me again. The Lord was gracious and patient with me through my sinful anxiety and distrust, and grew me during that time to understand the difficulties of anxiety.

I started the job and have loved it! We finally started talking about having kids. We started planning and knew we could start trying this year. My husband was working toward a promotion at work this summer.

We finally dug our heels in and made good lasting friendships. We finally started feeling setteled. Once my husband took this promotion there would be no moving for at least 3-5 years. The promotion was promised in about 3 months and looked extremely likely.

Then we got the call. A job promotion was open near our family….

Read Part 2 of Trusting Your Plans to the Lord