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How Did I Get Here?

Sometimes, when you least expect it, adventure hits you square in the face.

I have lived in the DC Metro area for the last fourteen years. My family moved here from St. Mary’s, Georgia in October 2000. We rented a house in Fairfax for most of the first year. In August 2001, my parents bought a house and we moved in and stayed put. For two and a half years prior to moving to St. Mary’s, we lived about five minutes down the road from where we live now.

Collectively, I’ve spent sixteen and a half of my twenty-five years in this area. For a military brat, that’s pretty impressive.

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I love this area. I love its proximity to the city, the suburbs, the beach, and the middle of nowhere. I love that I can hop on a bus and be in New York City in four hours or hop in my car and be in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley in two. I love the history that permeates the city of Washington DC and the fact that there’s always something to do.

As a child, I hated moving. I’ve always been highly resistant to change and growing up, I desperately wanted a place that truly was “home.” I listened to Focus on the Family’s Adventures in Odyssey and so wished I could be one of those kids who lived in a place where everybody knew me. I wanted to walk into the local coffee shop or bookstore and know the people that worked there — to know and be known.

That doesn’t happen very often, if ever, for military kids.

But when we moved to Northern Virginia in 2000 and never left, I finally got what I wanted. I knew people and they knew me. I still go to church with friends and adults I’ve known since I was twelve, who watched me grow from a little sixth grader to the woman I am today. And I love that, so very much.

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I fully intended to stay in the Northern Virginia area for most of, if not the entirety of the rest of my life. When my parents discussed possibly moving in a few years after my little sister graduates from college, I would tell them they weren’t allowed to move because I planned to stay here and I want my future children to know their grandparents in a way I never did.

Despite my insistence that I was staying put in this area, different elements of my life started pushing my head and my heart to open up to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t going to stay here forever.

Maybe, just maybe, there was something different. Something bigger. Something new.

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I had been unhappy at my job for a long time. It’s been two years and four months to the day since I started my first post grad job and I’ve wanted something different since about six months into that job.

I looked for other options in the DC area. I applied for jobs in editing, writing, and graphic design, but nothing panned out.

Sometime near the end of last year, I reached my breaking point. I was miserable. I dreaded going to work each day and couldn’t wait to leave. I knew something needed to change, but I didn’t know how or what. I’d been applying for jobs, but I wasn’t even getting interviews, much less offers.

Then one afternoon, while perusing Facebook, I saw a post that would change my life.

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It was a posting for a copywriter position at Adventures in Missions, an organization I’d become familiar with through my college roommate Kacie. My best friend had just returned from The World Race, their missions trip for 21-35-year-olds where participants go to eleven countries in eleven months.

The description sounded like me to a tee. Blog writing, article writing, long-form writing, social media management — all the things I do for myself, for this blog, but in an actual job at an actual company with an actual paycheck.

Before the end of the day, I’d sent in my resume and cover letter. A week later I had my first interview. And the following Monday, I received an offer.

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At the beginning of the year, I wrote about how I was having some sort of crisis. I needed something to change, I just didn’t know what. I contemplated everything from running off to Europe for ten days to quitting my job and moving to a random city.

I didn’t run off to Europe. But I did quit my job. And I am moving to a city, but it’s not a random one.

At the end of April, I’ll be heading down to Gainesville, GA to officially start my new position on the Adventures in Missions marketing team.

Since Adventures is a missions organization, I’ll be raising part of my salary in support, which is why I won’t be moving until the end of April.

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On January 1st, when I got hit square in the face with my quarter-life crisis, I told God that I wanted this to be the year I finally learned to trust Him.

Trust has always been the hardest thing for me about my relationship with God, because I like to control things and I’m horrible at letting others run the show. But I want that to change. So I asked God to help me learn how to trust Him. I didn’t care what else He taught me this year, but I wanted this to finally be the year I learned to trust Him.

Four weeks later, I was moving to a new state to start a job where 50% of my salary comes from the support of others who believe in the work I’m doing with Adventures.

I guess this is gonna be the year I learn to trust after all. And I’m learning that adventure is out there, often when and where you least expect it.

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The post How Did I Get Here? appeared first as Adventure Is Out There on Shades of Shayes.