life as i know it

Whoa...life has been crazy lately...I went from being totally secure at home with mom and dad, enjoying a great job, to making this amazing, once-in-a-lifetime move to Northern California...beautiful, rustic, drive-three-hours-to-get-anywhere, Northern California...

So what happened? Did I get an amazing job offer out here? Nope. Did I suddenly fall in love and decide to marry? Definitely not.


Nope. It was purely motivated by finding out who I am and where I want to live and who I want to be around.

Don't get me wrong. Life has always been great. After college I moved back home and got my knee fixed.

Then I got a super fun job working on social media and blogging and writing a ton.

But still...something was missing.

There was something unfinished. I still had this feeling like I wasn't quite settled. But I just kept telling myself those feelings were wrong, selfish even.

You should be content in everything. Right? Well I felt content but not exactly happy. I can honestly say there were times of sadness but overall I felt extremely blessed. It was just hard to be away from my friends who lived in Nor. Cal.

Very early this year my dad talked frankly to me. He said, "I love having you back here with us. So don't think this is about us - at all - but I can tell you want to live with your friends in Northern California."

"But Dad," I protested, "You can't just move to make yourself happy! I have no logical reason to go to California. I have a perfectly good job here. I'm content here."

"Okay...where did you get the idea you can't make yourself happy?"

I just stared blankly. It was a totally new idea for me. We, as Christians, are allowed (note the lack of entitlement... allowed vs. deserve) to make decisions that make us happy. We're allowed to eat chips because they taste good. We're allowed to buy fancy phones that get emails. Our happiness deserves a small priority in life.

I just thought you had to accept whatever God gave you. And you should. And happiness shouldn't be the ultimate factor (or even the second most important factor) in the decision-making process.

But this was something I wanted and had been waiting for. I had been praying for wisdom. I had been praying to be with these people I loved.

This isn't to say there hasn't been some difficulties. I've had to struggle with patience. God's been teaching me so much. Thank you to all who have supported me. Especially my brothers and sisters in CT...love and miss ya!

If you think of me here's a few things you could be praying for:

- a job (would be really nice)
- contentment
- getting to know those in my *new* local church
- diligence