Leaving What You Love, For The Love Of The Adventure

To say the past month has been totally crazy, would be a massive understatement. It had been exactly one week, to the day, since we said hello and goodbye to our angel baby when my husband and I received yet another bit of life changing news. My husband was offered a position as Special Agent with the USSS.

The call was not unexpected as he had been in the process for almost a year, but the timing of it was interesting (I’ll be asking God about it one day). They literally call you, offer you three locations and say, “congratulations, call us back within 24 hours with your decision.” Click. Under normal circumstances I’m sure our reactions would have played out a bit differently, however, we were still so emotionally raw from everything that had just happened with losing our son, that this was another huge shock and stress on our already fragile emotions.

Click?? CLICK?! 24 HOURS?! We were offered three locations, far, farther, and farthest. Not kidding. Part of our shock was not getting offered the location we (like idiots) had mentally prepared ourselves for. WHAT was God thinking?! We had to pick up our exploded brains off the floor, quickly make phone calls, do the best amount of research we could, and make one of the biggest decisions of our lives.

Do we go for it, or do we play it safe? It’s a huge opportunity, one that VERY few people get. On paper it sounds amazing, but in reality it’s freaking scary. It means moving and leaving behind everything you have come to know and love where you live now. This was my husband’s dream job, one that we had talked about, dreamt about, and encouraged each other about since the day we first met. Though, even with all the talk and forethought it felt like this opportunity came crashing into our lives completely out of the blue.

God literally (and unexpectedly) placed this opportunity in our laps a year ago. Since the day my husband submitted his application, we said that we would pray (really hard) and do our part to continue down this path until God makes it known that this was not the path for our family, if that be the case. Though we love our life here, and we love our families dearly, we love adventure. The possibilities were exhilarating and beyond what we could ever dream by staying here. We couldn’t imagine passing this God given opportunity up and living a life with that huge “what if” over our head.

My biggest concern was being so far from family and leaving a house and lifestyle that I LOVE. Being a young mother and having family support so close, is absolutely priceless. My husband’s biggest concern, aside from leaving a career he has been in for over 11 years, was being the reason his wife and child had to move away from family and all familiarity. What if this was a mistake? What if we are going to hate it? What IF?!! All the what if’s we could think of, didn’t compare to the huge WHAT IF we would live with if we didn’t say yes to the adventure. If we said yes, there was a solution to all of the what if’s we thought up, but if we said no to the job, we would live with the biggest “what if” on the table with no ability to go back and change it. For a number of reasons, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

There will undoubtedly be moments where this journey is difficult, where we second-guess our decision, and probably even hate life some days. We are only human! I can’t say we would have picked up our little family and moved across the country under normal circumstances, however we are embracing this as sort of a forced adventure. God has directed us toward this path for a reason, we need only to trust and see where it goes. Saying yes to this wild adventure is also an opportunity to detox our lives by getting rid of what we don’t NEED, and start fresh. We are so excited for the amount of new experiences and growth we have ahead… and have made a pact to intentionally capture all the priceless moments and memories along our journey.

Call us crazy, but we are leaving what we love, for the love of the adventure. Look out SoCal, we are moving to LA!

Xo – J

Side note – Have I mentioned how incredibly proud I am of my husband? Not only for the courage and strength to take care of our family, but also to pursue his dreams!! This will undoubtedly be difficult on both of us at times, especially since he will be away at training for close to 30 weeks, but I am completely honored to be his wife and stand by his side in this wild adventure we call our life!