I particularly loved the sound that occurred when we shut the U-Haul gate after unloading all of our stuff in Kalamazoo. It was the most satisfying echo, signifying that the worst was over. We had done all the heavy lifting twice that day last week (with the help of our wonderful friends and family) and now all we have left to do is to keep plugging away at unpacking at our leisure.
If you haven’t heard, my wife Laura and I have moved to Kalamazoo, MI as Laura gets ready to start grad school this week at Western Michigan University. The process of getting here was both hard and awesome. I don’t mean awesome in the way that everyone throws it around – like an “I’m awesome” t-shirt or something. But more like ‘awe-some’. Full of awe. When things happen that can only be traced back to the hand of God, that cause you to stand in awe of him.
Throughout the Bible there are many instances of prophets recounting the works of God to the people of Israel. How he brought them out of slavery in Egypt, and cared for them in the desert. How he rained down Manna from heaven, and parted the sea so they could escape Pharaoh’s pursuit unharmed, and how he dried up the Jordan River for them to cross over into the Promised Land among other wonders. So with that in mind, I thought it would be appropriate to sort of sum up some of the things that God has done throughout this transition to help us get to this next phase of our lives.
Probably the most significant is Laura’s not-so-straightforward path into Western. We decided on Western because she had been encouraged to come intern at the Child Trauma Assessment Center (CTAC) – a highly respected clinic that provides in-depth, transdisciplinary assessments for children who have experienced trauma, located on Western’s campus – by none other than the founder, Jim Henry, whom she met at an adoption conference last year. But when Laura applied to Western, she was rejected because of her undergrad GPA. We later found out from the Admissions department that apart from her undergraduate GPA, her application was very strong, and the faculty was at one point questioning her rejection versus acceptance. After some back and forth they graciously welcomed her into the Masters in Social Work program (MSW) with the understanding that she must receive B scores, minimally, during her first semester in order to continue in the program. We really feel like that is extremely odd. We have never heard of someone getting rejected, then accepted into a university; much less a grad program. We really saw God’s hand there and felt that maybe this whole grad school thing would be a wise move for us after all.
But the next big obstacle was Laura officially getting placed at CTAC for her internship. After all, that’s really the main reason we chose to move across the state. Laura hadn’t heard from Jim Henry throughout this whole process so we were worried that maybe he had forgotten about their meeting (which we later found out, he totally had – which is understandable; he’s a pretty big deal). Laura applied and waited to hear back, and then just a couple weeks before we were scheduled to move out here Laura heard from a friend of ours who used to intern at CTAC herself. She had run into Jim coincidentally and mentioned Laura. Jim had already filled the 3 available internship positions, but ended up requesting Laura’s internship application from her field coordinator, and created a 4th spot just for her. Also something that has rarely, if ever, happened at CTAC, and probably doesn’t happen in most instances in general, just like Laura’s acceptance into Western. Looking back, it’s amazing to see how God aligned Laura’s initial meeting with Jim Henry, which planted the idea of going to Western for grad school in our minds, and how he clearly finished what he started in carving out a path for her to arrive and get down to the business of becoming an even more impactful social worker.
Between receiving Laura’s acceptance letter to Western, and receiving the news that CTAC opened a spot for her, God had been providing in other small and big ways. There was our housing situation in K-zoo that we weren’t sure how we would afford with Laura not working, unless we found someone willing to give us a break on rent. We reached out to some churches, and found the favor of one particular pastor who presented our need to his community, which led to a recently widowed woman offering her condo to us for merely the cost of keeping up with the taxes and maintenance fees. Plus we now have someone in our lives here that we can get to know and hopefully help care for as she grieves the loss of her “prince” as she calls him. Then there was the car we thought we’d never be able to sell with all its problems (that we didn’t want to take with us to K-zoo), that ended up finding its way to the right buyer, to the new (used) car we were able to get for $1300 less than the initial price so we could stay within our budget; thanks to the powerful hand of God working through our sales rep at Suburban Toyota; and several instances of divine financial provision in between.
Also looking back I can see why my job situation took the turn that it did. I lost my job a year ago and ended up finding a new job that though it better suited me, I still thought was going to be simply a stepping stone to something more permanent. I see now why I felt God telling me along the way to stay with this company, because not only am I now worlds happier than I was at my last job, but the job is inherently very mobile, so I am able to work from pretty much anywhere. And it helps that my boss and the people I work with have been incredibly flexible with accommodating our relocation. I’m sure many can relate to the fact that often times we don’t understand what God is doing when life is uncertain, until we end up somewhere good and look back and see that we couldn’t have gotten there any other way.
There are so many ways that I can look back and see God’s hand on mine and Laura’s lives the past year or two that it would probably take a short book’s worth of explaining. But I think it is important to take time to stop and be thankful, and to proclaim some of the things that God has done. Laura and I continue to see God’s provision in our lives to this day, and we are so thankful that this transition has been for the most part pretty smooth. We do plan on moving back to the Detroit area following Laura’s graduation in 2 years, but until then we are looking forward to making this an adventurous time in our lives, and in our marriage.
So how has God provided for you lately?
