What a difference a day makes...

...or a year!

One thing I love about blogging is that I have a simple journal that captures my day-to-day, week-to-week or month-to-month happenings (my deeper-complex thoughts stay on paper, in a diary with a lock that has a voice-activated, retina-scan security lock on it. Or it's just a notepad on my bedside table. Either way, don't even THINK of opening it! :)). For instance, just about a year ago I was in some intense conversation with the Lord as to whether he wanted to me to head out to Colorado or say yes to the company that was very much pursuing me. I wanted writing on the wall. I wanted birds to form a sign in the sky. I wanted a tangible, audible, legible sign of what decision He wanted me to make. The answer that so clearly kept whispering to my heart was, "I will bless whatever choice you make". Really?? I mean, isn't it supposed to be right or wrong, black or white? How can there really be two choices? So, I went with the easy choice...the one that sounded exciting, the one that I'd been dreaming of. I was heading into one final lunch with this company, prepared to tell them "I'm sorry, but I'm moving to Colorado,"

but we all know that's not what ended up happening.

I went to that lunch, one that I can still remember vividly as if it were yesterday. We talked...a lot...I answered questions, I laughed, I tucked my hands under the table and clasped them together to calm my nerves. The meal was coming to an end and I knew the inevitable "we need a final answer" part of the conversation was only a matter of seconds away. Then something happened. After talking about why I wanted to move to Colorado, what life had been like for the past year in Nashville...Carl said something to me that changed everything. He looked at me, his eyes beginning to well up ever-so-slightly, and just said, "Trish...I just feel like we could rescue you as much as you could rescue us."

Wow.

I didn't even know I needed rescuing until that moment.

Next thing I knew, rather than saying what I'd come prepared to say, I asked for the weekend to think it over.

I didn't really need the weekend. I knew...at that exact moment...birds had written in the sky, a booming voice rang through the clouds and a soft voice whispered to my heart..."stay".

So I did.

Here I am, a year later...and if someone could have shown me a slideshow of how much life would have changed since that moment, I wouldn't have believed it. Somedays I still pinch myself. It hasn't been a smooth, easy road (I almost didn't make it through the first four months! :)), but some of the best journeys in life come full of bumps.

I'm just glad I stayed.