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Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

June 15, 2013

Stuck {How We Got Here, Part One}

On Friday we signed a lease for a new place to live. We’ll be moving soon, a process that has been a long and winding road. Here’s the story of how it happened.

The story begins last summer at the Tomato Pie Cafe in Littiz over fair trade coffee, tea and rich dessert.

Mario Alberto Magallanes Trejo | Stock Exchange

Mario Alberto Magallanes Trejo | Stock Exchange

Maybe the story starts a few months before that, when my husband graduated from seminary but learned he wouldn’t have a placement in a church. Or maybe this is just a set of chapters in the middle of our life story.

But really, I think, this part of it starts at the Tomato Pie Cafe. 

Phil and I met a pastoral couple from our denomination there to talk over what it would look like for us to join their congregation in Lancaster in an unpaid, unofficial ministry capacity. It was an introduction, of sorts. I barely knew either of them. Phil knew the husband a little better. Anything I knew was mostly from afar, and I had no idea how this get together would go down.

What I remember is feeling like we’d always been friends. We shared some of our stories. We caught a vision for ministry. We connected.

Though we’d been practical strangers when we walked into the cafe, we ended our time with hugs. And hope.

Phil and I began narrowing our job and housing search to Lancaster.

It was there that we both had circles of support that were important to us.

It was there that we believed we had a church we could attend and enjoy and love and help.

What we needed to get us there was a job.

Phil spent hours each day searching and searching for jobs and growing frustrated. Because who wouldn’t be frustrated that they had a master’s degree and no place to use it?

During these days we battled disappointment and anger. God, don’t You want us in Lancaster? we cried.

Nothing was changing. Not for months.

We were stuck. Wanting to be there. Still living here. Feeling like we didn’t really belong anywhere. It was impractical to commute that far for church, so we delayed our arrival, continuing to hope that it would be soon, all the while preparing our hearts to say good-bye to our current church family. Any day now, we thought. We felt like we’d overstayed our welcome.

And in the midst of our state of stuckness, we wondered: Had we heard God wrong?

To be continued …

Filed Under: faith & spirituality, how we got here Tagged With: job hunting, moving, trusting God, waiting

Reader Interactions

Trackbacks

  1. Possibility {How We Got Here, Part Two} | Living Echoes says:
    June 16, 2013 at 7:01 am

    […] « Stuck {How We Got Here, Part One} […]

    Reply
  2. Disappointment {How We Got Here, Part Three} | Living Echoes says:
    June 17, 2013 at 7:02 am

    […] process that has been a long and winding road. Here’s the story of how it happened. Read Part One here and Part Two […]

    Reply
  3. All the Wrong Places {How We Got Here, Part Four} | Living Echoes says:
    June 18, 2013 at 7:06 am

    […] process that has been a long and winding road. Here’s the story of how it happened. Read Part One here , Part Two here and Part Three […]

    Reply
  4. Movement {How We Got Here, Part Five} | Living Echoes says:
    June 20, 2013 at 7:00 am

    […] process that has been a long and winding road. Here’s the story of how it happened. Read Part One here , Part Two here, Part Three here and Part Four […]

    Reply
  5. Fulfilled {How We Got Here, Part Six} | Living Echoes says:
    June 21, 2013 at 7:06 am

    […] process that has been a long and winding road. Here’s the story of how it happened. Read Part One here , Part Two here, Part Three here, Part Four here and Part Five […]

    Reply
  6. When you can’t go back and you can’t stay here | Living Echoes says:
    May 12, 2014 at 7:01 am

    […] How We Got Here, Part 1 (It’s a six-part story.) […]

    Reply
  7. Should we stay or should we go? (And is there a third option?) | Living Echoes says:
    June 15, 2015 at 7:04 am

    […] been two years since we signed the lease on this partial house that feels like home most days. How we got here is a story all in itself, and if you haven’t heard it, you can read the back story on this […]

    Reply
  8. Earth turns and turning the earth says:
    June 23, 2016 at 7:25 am

    […] summer marks three years since we moved into the farmhouse. We only inhabit the first floor, and there’s no “farm” left. We are surrounded on […]

    Reply

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Hi. I’m Lisa, and I’m glad you’re here. If we were meeting in real life, I’d offer you something to eat or drink while we sat on the porch letting the conversation wander as it does. That’s a little bit what this space is like. We talk about books and family and travel and food and running, whatever I might encounter in world. I’m looking for the beauty in the midst of it all, even the tough stuff. (You’ll find a lot of that here, too.) Thanks for stopping by. Stay as long as you like.

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