My oldest has been sick since Friday night and I haven’t been out of the house for more than an hour and a half.  I am not feeling content as a result.  When I feel discontent, I begin looking for my next move in this game of life.  I question what I should be doing…I many times over think it.  Yesterday, my sister-in-law posted it was Triple Negative Breast Cancer Day.  As I began deciding what to blog about today, I was reminded of this past year and beyond…and reminded to be patient and my next move will be given when it needs to be given.

A year ago (I believe it was exactly a year ago today) I quit my job as a nurse.  I could list reasons why it made sense but truly it just felt like the right thing to do.  I hesitated at first due to worrying about feeling empty and unproductive, because a huge part of what makes me me is my need to help people.  I love taking care of people.  I knew I would have my family to take care of, but being a nurse had been a part of me for fourteen years.  Before becoming a nurse I was a nursing assistant and before that I spent time volunteering in a nursing home.  That is over half my life.

A month after I quit, we received the news of my sister-in-law being diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer.  My being home had a whole new meaning after her diagnosis.  I soon learned why it felt so right to quit my job––and many other decisions my husband and I had made based on feeling right or wrong suddenly made sense.

The first house my husband and I lived in was a rental.  The owners decided to move back into it, so we needed to move.  We had a young child diagnosed with an eye disorder and although we did not want to stay in that area long term, there was a school in a nearby city that houses all the kids with special vision needs…so it felt right to stay there a little while longer until we knew how severe his condition was.  We bought a short term house.

We soon realized Luke would need special services in school but he functioned well enough to attend school with the general population.  Immediately we began thinking of where we would eventually end up.  Nothing felt right.  We entertained the idea of moving closer to his brother but we held off.  The idea kept coming back to us and every time we went out there we liked the area more.  Long story short, it soon felt like the right place to be.  Finding a house out here was not easy.  It is a desirable place to live and we found ourselves in bidding wars.  No Fun.  We took a break.  Then we stumbled upon a house, our house.  We put an offer on it and it was accepted.  We were going to rent out our current house because the market was bad in the area but decided to try for one month to sell it.  The first day it was on the market we had an offer we couldn’t refuse.

You see, we needed to be out here and God paved the way for us.  He always does.  There is a reason why things feel right and other things feel wrong.  My grandma used to say, “The gut is usually smarter than the brain.”  Those words ring more true the more I trust and listen to God.