Directions from where I've been to where I am now...

It will all begin on January 15, 2008. Not only is this the day you were married, or Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, or the anniversary of the day that your husband's grandma passed away, but also the day you will receive the most life-changing phone call of your life!

Your husband will decide to take the day off work to celebrate your 8-year anniversary. After spending much of the day "hanging out" and "catching up," the husbands cell phone will ring. He will ignore the ring and pick up the voicemail later. Without realizing the magnitude of this voicemail, he delays picking it up...until a friend from work calls and tells him the message is urgent and he must listen to it at once!

Immediately, the husband will retrieve the voicemail where he will listen to a recorded message informing him, along with 3,500 other employees, that his service is no longer needed.

A gush of emotions will rush through your body and mind as you try to digest this news. You will cry, you will worry, and you will wonder why? You will have so many questions and also feel very sad, confused, frustrated, unprepared, and unable to see a clear path of what to do.

You have always been a woman of faith, and, yet, this experience will try and test your faith and testimony of prayer unlike ever before. You will often find yourself on your knees, begging, asking, and praying for comfort and enlightenment of what to do.

One day, the answer will come and you will fight it because it is not what you want to do. This answer will require much sacrifice and continued hardship, but will also bring joy, peace, and comfort.

After spending 6 years in an area that you love, a place where you have made life-long friends, delivered babies and watched them grow, while also developing many roots of your own, you will follow the instructions of that tiny little voice (in your heart and in your head), and despite your better judgment, leave it all!

You will quickly put your house up for sale. You will secretly hope it doesn't sell and pray that by some miracle you can stay. However, the house will sell quickly, but not without a struggle. In a poor housing market, you will find yourself paying $9,000 to sell your home and relieve you and your family from a short-sell or foreclosure. No matter how painful it feels, you will also feel relief knowing it sold, and in some weird way, know there was someone greater looking out for you.

You will spend weeks packing boxes, cleaning, crying, carpooling kids from house to house to be looked after, crying and cleaning, packing up the moving truck, crying some more, saying many goodbyes, crying, and then walking out the door, stepping foot into your car and heading out of state to live with your in-laws.

Your husband has decided to go back to school. You have decided that two years isn't much of a sacrifice. When you arrive, you put most of "your" things in storage and "try" to make this "new" home "feel" like home. You will long for what you miss most and, often, cry because it is so far away. Talking on the phone to friends and family, as well as blogging and emailing will bring you comfort.

You will immediately start looking for part-time work. You will do this so you can help your family financially, but also so you can socialize and make friends. You will interview for group exercise instructor positions and accept them. You will also sign up to substitute teach.

You will immediately be asked to sub a dance class and accept. On your first day, you will be extremely nervous and start to feel very sick on your way to the gym. To avoid embarrassment at the gym, you will stop at the nearest gas station and be stopped outside your car, by a stranger who is curious about your license plate. Not wanting to be rude, although you are feeling very ill, you will politely answer his question about your personalized license plate and how it came to be. After a quick explanation, you will turn to go inside, and this stranger will begin to tell you the story of his life. With only ten minutes to spare before your class starts and an upset stomach, you will begin to sweat bullets about your time schedule, but feel unable to interrupt him and tell him you need to leave. Ten minutes later...you make a quick exit out of the conversation, run in to use the restroom, and make it to the gym two minutes late. Despite the stress of getting there, the class loves you, has a great time, and it really uplifts your day!

You will spend most of your days, with your husband working, subbing classes here and there, signing up your daughter for dance, taking the kids to the park, taking the kids swimming, teaching yourself new step and dance routines, planning out new menus for the family to try, and entertaining play dates for your two older children.

You will marvel at how quickly the summer has gone by, and hope the next two years are the same. Yet, that means each child will be that much older. You want to bottle them up and keep them just the way they are right now forever. In two years, you envision your family stronger, closer, and more secure and prepared for the future. You know that if this were easy, it probably wouldn't be worth it. And, it will be worth it!