10 Years Ago Today...

...Husband and I lifted then-2-year-old Fifi into a large U-Haul packed with our every earthly possession, waved goodbye to the neighbors, and closed the chapter on one season of our lives to embark on another. We were leaving our sweet red-brick home in the Sugarhouse section of Salt Lake City, Utah for an extended stay hotel in the great unknown land of guayaberas, breakfast tacos and midday siestas: San Antonio, Texas.

Well, we were right about the breakfast tacos, anyway.

But let me back up.

Husband and I used to work in radio. On the glamorous side of the microphone. Only, really--it's not so glamorous at all. We always felt overworked and underpaid. And we rarely had the tools and promotional support we thought we needed to succeed.

But worst of all was the way we were always waiting for the other shoe to drop. That is to say that radio stations are always being bought and sold, coming under new management and being staffed with the new guy's friends and favorites. It's all very subjective. It's life on the airwaves at a commercial radio station.

I think I lost a job that way 2 or 3 times; Husband's career was longer, so he endured the dreaded shoe a couple of times more than that. Once on his birthday even! The last time was a few short days after Fifi turned 1 year old.

And then he was finished. Good riddance.

With an equity loan signed that very afternoon to help make the household ends meet, Husband started a very small but full-service music programming service. He had some good contacts, landed a couple of clients, but ultimately found that the business would not support us. Although a failure, that year was the best of his life. It was a gift he wouldn't have dared buy for himself had it not been thrust upon him that way; he saw his daughter's first steps and heard her first words. *sigh* I can still see him setting her in her navy-with-white-polka dots stroller and heading down the tree-lined sidewalk for a walk up to Einstein's Bagels on 15th and 15th.

After about 8 months, he took a job selling satellite t.v. systems to restaurants, retail and convenience stores. Actually, he only had to sign them up for a free trial to get a commission. Sometimes he scored, sometimes he couldn't give 'em away--literally. Then one day he came home and said that his boss had territory in San Antonio that no one was selling and did we want to move?

*I'm sorry...say that again?*

Bizarre as it sounded in the moment, we considered it. We had a house that had appreciated well during the real estate boom along the Wasatch Front, and we didn't have any compelling reason to stay in Utah: we hadn't any family and we weren't part of "the Church."

And then Husband went out in the company RV to live and sell and generally check it out for 5 weeks and was sold. Or led. Definitely led. And to remove the very last roadblock, the Lord arranged for the United States Congress to repeal the capital gains tax on property as we were making our decision. That allowed us to sell high, and buy lower here in Texas without having to forfeit 28% of the difference.

We're often amazed at our tunnel vision in the moment. Clearly the Lord wanted us here. We knew that the job we were coming out for was tentative at best, we had no family here, and every one of our things was neatly packed in a truck--we could have gone anywhere and been as well off.

It was a fun, stressful, exhilarating, tiring, happy, long journey. We were on the road for 3 1/2 days, in that time we left our mark on an awning in Moab with our giant truck, found that our 2 year old was teaching herself some pre-reading skills when she recognized the "Subway" sandwich shop sign wherever we went, and endured the worst excuse for the best Mexican food in town in Cuba, New Mexico.

No offense.

2 homes, 2 jobs, 10 years and 9 churches later--and we're so glad we're here. Come what may, we know that 2008 will be a good year because the Lord is for us, as He is, and will be, every year until there is no more linear time and we will glorify Him and enjoy Him forever after in eternity.

Maranatha and Happy New Year!