For the past 6 weeks, our family has been on a very uplifting rollercoaster ride, one that I would like to call a chair lift instead.
For the past 4 months, my husband and I have been receiving promptings, or gut feelings as some may call them, to move from our wonderful home in Utah. We love our home, our neighborhood, our area, our neighbors, our ward, our friends, our life. We have always been an adventure seeking family, but this seemed like a far stretch of excitement in my mind. Here's how the last few months have gone for us.
Jeremy receives an impression it's time to move. I'm not on board. Time passes.
I receive and impression it's time to move. Jeremy's not on board. Time passes.
We both receive an impression that it's time to move, but we're not on board. Time passes.
One Sunday while sitting in a Relief Society class taught by a wonderful sister who prepared herself to deliver the message I needed to hear that day further prompted me to STOP pushing aside the impressions to move. I came home and told Jeremy what happened. I was sitting in the meeting, quiet as a church mouse, no pun intended. This is odd for me because I always have something to say. I felt a paleness wash over me, similar to the feeling right before you upchuck on a swirly car ride up a canyon. It was intense and definitely noticeable. I hadn't experienced anything like this in previous promptings. I felt like I was having an out of body experience like I was contributing to the lesson but my mouth wasn't actually moving. It was surreal and interesting to me. When I recounted all this was Jeremy, he was amazed. He had been praying that we would be on the same page eventually and stop pushing it aside.
Although I had this experience, I was still fighting it. Simply because I don't want to move. As stated before, I really feel like life couldn't get any better for our family than right here, right now. But I know deep in my heart that God has something even better for me and my family; although I can't imagine it.
A few days later Jeremy asked me to pray about the timing of putting our house up for sale.
(A little back story. Jeremy branched off to work on his own coaching business the beginning of December. It started off well and then subsided as quickly as it came on. He was working from home creating highly valuable content, marketing his services and creating connections without much of a monetary reward. It was exhausting and hard for him and for me to watch him. All the while I was trying to succeed with my personal training business as a side hobby job while the kids were in school. I wasn't successful until I was close to slowing down my efforts and then I was hit hard, in a good way, with 4 clients in one week! It was amazing, but we still didn't have steady income. We were living off of savings that we have been advised to carry in the event something like this would happen and it was withering away. While the stress wasn't there, the need to find a regular paying job kept creeping in. Jeremy applied for jobs in Utah, remote jobs and Arizona jobs. We decided whichever company offered him a job, that was our answer 'if' we should move or not. Stupid us, we knew we needed to move, a job wouldn't tell us that.)
So.....without having a job, we decided to list our house the week of spring break. After weeks of looking for employment, Jeremy received a job offer the very DAY we listed our house. (If you know anything about listing a house, you have to decide when and how much and then it's usually put on the market the next day). With that said, we had no idea we would be offered a job. We LEAPED into the deep lake of faith and took a swim! Within 2 days we were under contract. 2 weeks later we went to Arizona to look for housing and found the house that will best meet the needs of our family and have pressed forward. Since then, we have been figuratively showered with countless blessings!
So why would I title this blog 'Happiness & Sadness Can Coexist'?
The idea of moving and starting in a new area sounds adventurous, fun and exciting! Getting to know new people, explore new places and learn new cultures seems rewarding. All the while, getting to know new people, explore new places and learn new cultures seems scary and daunting. Especially with all the uncertainty surrounding the CoronaVirus pandemic, our hopes of setting roots will be realized sooner than later!
Sadness comes as we realize the memories that we have made here will be etched in our hearts but left in this home. Measuring the kids on the walls, 3 of my children being baptized here, learning to love running half marathons, creating businesses, many many children who have blessed our home by playing with my kids, health and pornography challenges overcome and the list goes on and on. I decided to write a list of blessings and things I have learned while living here for the past 5 years and I had to stop writing because my hand was hurting. I am truly blessed to have been in THIS area, surrounded by THESE wonderful people during THIS time in my life. God is always in the details of our lives and He has proven to be with us every moment of our short stay here in Eagle Mountain.
Signing papers today was harder for me than I could have imagined! I cried! Yep, you read that right, this metaphorical tin man shed some tears today! I do have a heart and it was breaking and healing at the same time! Happiness and Sadness can Coexist!
While uncertainty will always threaten our peace, we can press forward knowing that God has a work for us to do in Arizona. We're not sure what that is, but we're not willing to push it aside any longer; we've already missed out on the blessings that come from immediate obedience, let's not delay it any longer.