And Now You Know the Rest of the Story..... (Part Two)

Tuesday, we left off with our story in the month of March. (If you missed it, you might want to catch up so you’re not lost. You can click here to go to the post.)

March was the hardest month for me. I’ve said it before only a few times, but infertility wrecked my faith. I really didn’t know how to trust God anymore. I knew that I should trust Him. I knew deep down that He was faithful, but the constant disappointment from infertility I was so familiar with the last eighteen months had all but destroyed me. When I got a job offer before Roman did, I was afraid to make a move. In an instance, all of the confidence and peace I had felt about our move had vanished and I was left with all of the tiny questions that had suddenly become mountains in my mind.

What about Roman’s job? Where would we move? Can we afford to move? What about my friends? What about Roman’s job? What about our church? What about Roman’s job?

I hesitantly called the human resource specialist back the next afternoon with my answer: I would take the job, but I couldn’t start until the end of April. I told her that my husband and I would have to move and we would need the time to find a place to live and get to Columbus. Truthfully, I was just trying to push my start date out as far as possible to give Roman’s job offer more time. For the next five weeks, we would wait in intense anticipation.

We went house hunting one last time at the beginning of April. We tried to be as transparent as we could with the landlords we met. We carefully explained that I had a job offer and that he was in the final stages of a job offer. Once he had a job offer we would need to move right away. We selected a house and the landlord told us he would hold it for one week. We fully expected God to “wrap things up” and for Roman to get a job offer that week. We were not comfortable with signing a lease for a house without his job offer.

That week, Roman’s dad had a God-orchestrated encounter with someone who knew the status of Roman’s job. According to this individual, Roman had been selected and they were just waiting on a few things to clear up before he got a job offer. We were greatly encouraged, and I finally decided to officially announce to my boss that we were leaving. Our week went by with no job offer. Not wanting to lose the house, we told the landlord that we would meet with him the next weekend and sign the lease and deliver the security deposit. Surely God would work everything out by then! And oh yea, I had two weeks before I was supposed to start my new job. We started packing our house up out of pure faith.

At first, we were adamant about not signing a lease without a job offer. How in the world could we hand over the entire contents of our savings account and hold ourselves legally liable on a rental contract with no job offer for Roman? There was no way we could afford the higher rent without him having a job! But eventually, we decided that this was just going to have to be a leap of faith. It took all of my energy to stand on what I felt God had been saying all along: move to Columbus. I was so used to disappointments and being angry and doubtful towards God. It was almost as though I could feel those flames of refinement in my heart.  

So that next weekend, we took a deep breath and jumped off the cliff. We signed the lease and handed over a cashier’s check that had emptied our savings account. My job threw me a going away party. Roman put in his notice at his job. We rented a U-Haul, and we moved that week.

The almost month since then has been an emotional and spiritual roller coaster. We took our leap of faith and moved to Columbus. I started my new job, and it has been great. We’ve gone through the month of May with only my paycheck, the going-away gift from our church, and the reimbursed security deposit from our last rental. I’ve spent the last month looking at our budget and looking at our accounts and then looking at God. “We can’t go on like this for another month.” Roman started looking at part-time job announcements in the area, but said none of them felt right. We had been telling every new person we met that he was in the “final stages of a job offer” and would be starting soon, but the truth was that we really weren’t sure. Maybe God wanted us in Columbus, but didn’t want Roman in that job? We tried our best to just trust Him and not doubt…..but it was hard. Really, really hard.

But finally, oh happy day, Roman got his job offer this past Thursday! It took everything in me to not scream when he called me at work to tell me the news. I don’t think I could ever describe to you the feeling of relief I had as soon as he called. To finally have our faith made sight in this part of our journey is an incredible experience.

Truth is, the past six months has been a crazy adventure, but now that this part of the story has ended I can say with confidence that I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Because the last six months has restored a part of me that I thought infertility had stolen forever: my faith in God. I can recall the times I heard God’s voice, and I can look back over the puzzle and see how He was faithful and true to His word. I can see how shallow my doubts were in light of His promises. And I can now look to the future and say with confidence that I will trust the Lord to guide my steps in the way they should go.

This part of our adventure has ended, but the next part is just beginning. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.” ~Psalm 40:2