Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Archives for June 2013

Disappointment {How We Got Here, Part Three}

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. Read Part One here and Part Two here.

We’ve missed a lot of holidays, birthdays and family events since we moved to Pennsylvania five years ago. But this was the first time we’d ever missed Christmas. Phil’s new job, at a restaurant near a shopping outlet, meant holiday hours for everyone and no time off. So, we scheduled our visit to Illinois in early January, after the holidays.

Around the same time, I learned that the second interview I’d been waiting for wasn’t going to come.

Talk about a blue Christmas.

We spent Christmas Day with friends who made us feel like family, and on New Year’s Eve, we drove all night to be in Illinois for the start of 2013.

Two weeks at home soothed our spirits and at the same time stirred our longing for resolution. It was hard to leave our hometown when we felt we had nothing going for us back in Pennsylvania.

I’m not much a fan of winter anyway, and I wasn’t looking forward to the dark, cold months ahead.

“Nothing was changing” became in my mind “Nothing is ever going to change.”

I was losing hope.

Losing faith.

My words were seasoned with bitter herbs as I talked about our life. I cried a lot. And for a while, I turned my back on God.

I wanted to fix our life. To make it all work out. But I didn’t have the first clue how, or even what was broken, if anything.

Michael Kaufmann | Stock Exchange

Michael Kaufmann | Stock Exchange

Our daughter turned 5 in March and everyone started asking her about school in the fall.

School. That was the deadline in my mind. I needed us to be settled somewhere before then because kindergarten was going to be a big change for all of us, not just her.

God could do that for us, right? I held out faint hope.

Around this time, another job opened up at the place I’d applied at in the fall. We still weren’t making ends meet and even though I didn’t know how we’d swing daycare and two work schedules, I applied again.

And still heard nothing.

Was God even still interested in us?

Possibility {How We Got Here, Part Two}

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. Read Part One here.

The kids and I had been at the library one Friday in early fall, and when we came home, I asked Phil how the job searching was going.

“Well, I found a job you can do,” he said.

I laughed and dismissed his comment. Then we talked about it and decided if that would get us to Lancaster, maybe we should consider it.

I hadn’t written a cover letter or updated my resume in almost five years, but I went for it anyway. I applied for a job I was both passionate about and qualified for–a rare combination, especially for someone who left the job market to stay home with her kids.

Then, we waited.

The day before my first interview was scheduled, I found out the job had changed from its initial description, but I went ahead with the interview anyway. The timeline, also, had changed, so my second interview wouldn’t be for a few months.

More waiting.

In the meantime, Phil kept looking for jobs. We and our families kept looking for solutions. There were days I wanted to move back to Illinois. Or to Canada or Colorado or somewhere we could just start over. I was restless for change, tired of feeling stuck.

In a word: impatient.

Because life wasn’t working out for us here.

Then Phil saw an ad that the Chick-fil-A in Lancaster was hiring. It wasn’t his first choice for jobs, but at this point, we didn’t have any other choices. We knew they’d be closed on Sundays, which is something our family needed, and we’d heard they were a good company to work for.

So, he applied and was hired. It was a step we had to take even though it didn’t solve everything. It was more pay but not enough, and it involved two hours of commuting each day.

But it felt like the right next step. So we leapt.

Nate Brelsford | Stock Exchange

Nate Brelsford | Stock Exchange

It was late fall and we were hopeful that things were moving, even if they were moving slowly. We had hope that any.day.now the pieces would come together and we could once-and-for-all move to Lancaster.

I started packing boxes here and there with no real effort.

We felt confirmed in our desire to move to Lancaster.

But, still, we waited.

The question was: How long would we have to wait?