We have some news! Our family is moving to Ohio!
The question on everyone’s mind is: why?
The short answer is this: We feel prompted to.
Is it absolutely terrifying? Yes. Is it exercising our faith? Yes. Does it still feel right, though? Yes.
Story Time
I could write a whole lot about this experience. But it has already felt like a huge journey for me personally as well as for our family. Here is the long story.
Last March (18 months ago), promptings started to happen for me. At first, I tried to push them aside. I tried to reason with myself that it was just my internal clock not used to staying in the same place for so long. Or maybe I was trying to run away from some things that had been hard in my life at that time.
But the promptings kept coming and they kept coming stronger and stronger. The first prompting was just that our time in Colorado was coming to an end. That even though this chapter in our story has been so good in so many ways, it was time for a new chapter. I mostly kept these feelings to myself at the beginning.
Then other things started to happen. It became more and more obvious that we needed a different home for Lydie. We bought this house knowing it was a 5-Year Home (which it will be in April). It is just not set up how we would like and we don’t love the house or location enough to want to invest in changes to it. We need a different space for her and for us moving forward.
And the promptings continued. Then it wasn’t so much about just needing to move, but about rethinking my priorities and our family’s priorities. To live in a different way.
My entire life, I have wanted to live on a farm in the country with a big porch, white picket fence, a large garden, some animals, and a dozen kids running around. A peaceful, simple life. And somewhere along the way, I started to believe that that was an impossible dream. Or that it wasn’t even a worthwhile one. That it was too out of reach. That it didn’t make sense for our family. The list goes on and on.
But it was like all of the feelings I’ve ever had about this, came surging back at once. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I kind of became consumed by it – which wasn’t good. When I opened up to Mark about it, he wanted all of those same things. But it felt out of reach. An impossible dream.
Then that summer, things really started to shift. Each of my “bigs” came to me, separately, and talked to me about promptings they were having. About wanting to spend more time outside as a family. About their dreams of gardens and animals. And all of a sudden, I realized that my dream was actually our family’s dream. And I felt less guilty for having it.
One of the biggest things I’ve realized in this experience is that it is really easy to TALK about dreams, it is an entirely different thing to go LIVE them. We just couldn’t get past the talking phase.
And then once we knew it was right, the big question loomed – WHERE?
And that is where we got really stuck.
There is a whole lot of world out there.
We tried to go about things how we had done in the past. But it didn’t feel like it was working. It was a hard period because we all weren’t on the same page, and I’m not used to that in our family dynamic. I really struggled with it, and I will leave it at that.
Finally, it got to a point where I felt like the Lord needed us to DO something, and then confirmation would come. So we jumped.
It should be mentioned that there is so much to consider with a move for anyone, but our family I do feel like has a couple of asterisks by that. We hoped for a place where we could get some land (which I know is a very relative term, but when you are living on a .15 acre lot, land is anything about ½ an acre or more). We wanted to live close to a temple. We wanted a place that was homeschool friendly. And we NEEDED a place that could provide quality care for Lydie. And then if all that could be close to family – that would be the best.
Sadly, the west (while it fits many of those things), does not give you land that is affordable. And that was something important to us. It became very clear that we would have to look in the Midwest or back East. This is completely uncharted territory for us.
But we were leaping. Mark applied to about five places and almost immediately heard back from every single one of them. This was also uncharted territory. Everyone wanted Mark. He jokingly said he felt like he was dating five women at once and was having a hard time keeping them straight!
He applied to jobs in Idaho, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio.
Idaho
The first job offer was from Idaho. My entire life I have been trying to live in Idaho. That place has a hold on my heart that I don’t know if it will ever go away. The night Mark started to apply, a job opened up at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls. Jobs almost NEVER open up here – I know, I’ve been looking for about a decade. It was our dream location. It ticked ALL the boxes. It was going to be a night position – which we didn’t love the idea of going back to that – but we would do just about anything to get there.
But then we made an awful discovery. Without going into too much detail, Mark has been working on getting his student loans “forgiven” for ten years. This summer he reached the quota he needed, but it is pending approval. We are still waiting. And we found out that unlike most hospitals, this hospital is for-profit, which means it doesn’t qualify for loan forgiveness. So while it shouldn’t be a problem, it would be an enormous financial gamble. We just couldn’t do it. It felt like some awful test the Lord was putting us through. To have to say “no” to what has been the dream for so long. I haven’t figured out why we needed to go through that, but FAITH.
Ohio
While we were struggling with Idaho, other hospitals were activity pursuing Mark – especially Ohio. Mark interviewed for a job with the Cleveland Clinic. Which is an incredibly prestigious hospital. He loved everyone he spoke with, and the job is a step up in many ways from what he has now. After playing phone tag for DAYS (let me just say, this was excruciating for me), Mark was finally offered the job three hours into our drive to Arkansas for our family trip (more on that later).
And he has accepted!
We are feeling all of the feelings. It feels like an enormous leap of faith. Doubts definitely come, but they are usually fleeting. It is awful to think about being so far from family. I know my heart will always be very sad about that.
But there are a couple things that keep pulling me through.
First, when all of this started and throughout this whole journey, my prayer has been to guide us to a place where our family can put down roots, where my children will thrive, and where the Lord needs us. Let me just say, it is scary for me to give the Lord the reins. But also, really exciting when you mean it. And I meant it.
Very early on, I felt drawn to Ohio. I don’t know why. I’ve been there once (our family trip was there way back in 2013), and that is the extent of my experience. I don’t know anyone there, I don’t even know anyone that has lived there before. But I trust that the Lord is guiding us. And I feel like we are in good company. I have read countless stories to my kids (unintentionally) about people leaving what they know in search of their dreams. I think it is a story that has been told ever since the beginning of time actually. And now we are part of that.
The day Mark accepted the offer, I saw this quote from Elder Clark G. Gilbert. He was speaking of the dedication of the Cody Wyoming Temple, but I felt like it applied to our situation as well:
“If you want to know the Savior, go to the frontier because that is where He does His work. It is where the greatest growth and development happens, and where He is most needed. Each of us has our own spiritual frontiers – uncharted territories – where we have never been and will need the Lord’s help to settle. The Lord will show us our own spiritual frontiers if we ask Him. He will take us to places that He wants us to go, and He will not leave us alone.”
Ohio is our new frontier.
And the second reason I know we are going to be okay is because of the people I am doing it with. I love our family. And I trust in the relationships that we have with one another. It may not all be roses and rainbows, but we have one another. There is a reason for this major shift in our lives. It may try our faith, but we don’t have to do it alone. I know our Savior is walking with us, and we are going to keep inviting Him in, and we have one another.
So that is the long story. We will take all of the prayers as we start this new chapter for our family. And we hope all of you will visit us – because leaving all of our family and friends is the hardest part.
