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Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

waiting

Possibility {How We Got Here, Part Two}

June 16, 2013

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?

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

Stuck {How We Got Here, Part One}

June 15, 2013

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

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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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