We Are Moving!

Here’s a story about God’s timing. You’ll want to read, it’s a good one. 

When we got married 3 years ago, life was extremely hard. I had been living in Los Angeles since 2013. I was depressed, we had no money living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, our health was deteriorating from all the top ramen we were eating, I had never been more mad at God, and I had nothing but a victim mindset. 

When the pandemic hit, we felt like it was time for a change. But we didn’t know what that looked like.

Jordan lost his job at the beginning of the pandemic and therefore got a much better one somewhere else. I officially got out of depression, yay! 🕺 Unemployment gave us the finances to start eating healthy and storing some $$ away. When the world was on fire, we were getting our lives back. It was a strange time. But it was a chance for us to rest after years of darkness. 

As we navigated what change we wanted to make, we felt like we needed to move. We didn’t know where or when, but during the beginning stages of us visiting new cities, we couldn’t quite put our finger on where. Nothing felt “right”. We wanted to move somewhere that could provide a calmer way of life, had a madly creative community (or one that we could pioneer), was inclusive, diverse, and provided a low cost of living. Basically we wanted LA without the cost and anxiety. Around October 2020 I found a program online that pays you to move as long as you stay one year and work remotely. I didn’t think much of this but it stayed in my mind. Fast forward 6 months, since I work remote, I remembered this program and thought why not? So I sent in an application in April 2021. Spoiler alert, I didn’t get accepted. Although we had never visited the location of where this program was located, we kept thinking about it, fantasizing what life would be like if we lived there. We felt the season of transition starting in our lives at this point. Kinda wild.

Side story – when it comes to faith steps, Jordan can easily make a decision, take the step of faith, and then see if that’s what God wants for him. I DO NOT function this way. I don’t take the step until I feel God’s peace. I’ve always been this way. But in the situation of moving to this new city, I wasn’t getting that peace. So I could have taken it one of two ways: I could have assumed that meant it was wrong. But Jordan felt down to move here although we’ve never visited. I couldn’t pull that kind of risk-taking trigger, so I bought a flight and visited this city with my mom in August 2021. I still didn’t feel peace. But I didn’t feel it was wrong either. 

After I visited, I started to see a future there. No city is perfect, but this one kept getting the approval in many different ways from strangers and friends alike. So I thought, “why not apply to the same remote program again? It wouldn’t hurt, and it would be much better to move somewhere that wants me, and we’d get paid to move there!” I had no expectations to get approved the second time since I didn’t get approved the first. So I nonchalantly sent in my second application. But this time I felt God’s hand on it. iykyk. While I waited, I heard there were tens of thousands of people applying and my chances were really slim. I had very little hope, therefore there was very little stress.

Then I got the email. I made it to the video interview round. I was shocked. It became real. I immediately got so nervous. It felt like everything was riding on me getting into this program, otherwise we would have to start looking for a new city from square one. After that interview, I got an email that they liked me and wanted to move onto the next round. I was so excited and nervous, I messed up when I sent in my documents for approval by sending wayyyyy more than what they asked for. It was bad. I mean like an overly excited nerdy kid wanting to date the popular girl in school, bad. Part of me thought that I blew it. But then I get an email saying it was cleared, I got in. They wanted ME enough to pay me to move there, and that’s when I got the peace I was looking for. Now it felt right to move. God knew I needed that confirmation. With all the nervous mistakes I made applying to this program, it’s pretty darn clear that I was supposed to get into this program regardless.

At this point, the only thing keeping us from moving was Jordan’s job. We had planned to stay at my parents house for a couple months during the holidays and for my sister in law’s wedding, so finding a remote job for Jordan to transition from LA to Dallas to our new home city was priority. Mind you, we had this plan decided since summer with, so to see God’s timing align with ours is incredible. Jordan applied to approximately 75 jobs over the course of about 4 months. He never heard back from a single one. However, we truly felt it was God’s timing. He kept those doors closed SHUT and it was so relieving. It allowed us to exercise patience in a way like never before. It was oddly enjoyable. And then Monday he had an interview with a company that is in the motorcycle industry. Pretty hard to find a remote job in this industry. And they wanted to have an interview with him! If you know Jordan, you know that he nails every single interview, and the man’s had like 100 jobs. So we knew that he was going to get it. So Monday he had his interview, got accepted on the spot, he accepted their offer, and that was the final puzzle piece. Now we were free to move! It gave us enough time to put in our 30-days notice with our landlord so we didn’t have to pay any extra. Talk about perfect timing.

Now, something I’m still processing is how God has obeyed our timeframe in all of this. Generally speaking, 99.99% of the time it’s God’s timeframe that we obey. And in a way it was still that scenario in our story. But for the first time in my life, we set the dates we wanted months ago knowing they were just plans and knowing how God might severely delay this timing. But it all aligned exactly (like to the date) to our schedule we planned. 🤯 It’s been cool to see our vision and gods timing line up perfectly. This is still amazing to me and I’m still letting it astound me. The child-like wonder is a really place nice to sit in. 

Ok, so if you haven’t read my IG post yet, I’ve strung you out long enough if you didn’t cheat by scrolling down to the bottom to find out where we are moving yet. 😜 Although Los Angeles has made me, formed me, and refined me for almost a decade, it is not our home (at least not for the near future). 

It is time to focus on expanding, healing, and investing into our future, something that’s extremely difficult to do here. Now with Jordan’s new job, and my acceptance into the remote program, we are excited to announce that we are moving to Tulsa! We are currently in the process of possibly buying our first starter house. *cue the happiest of tears* It’s been a big dream of mine to own my own house and the fact that this is even a possibility now that we are moving is the greatest gift. 😭 But prayers for that because we aren’t even pre-approved for a loan yet.
We will officially be gone from LA on Halloween. The countdown begins. I’ll be updating my IG with the entire journey. But first, I’ll be crying for a little while, don’t mind me. 

Feel free to comment below, and if you do, leave your IG handle if you have one so I can know who you are!

Thanks for reading,
Laura

  1. Kaylynn Stone says:

    So excited for y’all and your journey. I can’t wait to see what God does through y’all there. ❤️

  2. […] an elongated transition of 4 months. Four months of moving cross country (3 times in 1 week… that’s a fun story for another time), relearning how to interact with non-LA people (IYKYK😛), sleeping in beds not our own, not […]

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