one very long week...

hello friends,

first of all, i want to warn everyone, this one might be a pretty long post. i know i just lost a lot of you but i still want to write about our first week in colorado because i want to remember all of it.



however for everyone who doesn't want to know every in and out of the last week here is the short of it.



-Dom has a job. I dont have a job. we signed a lease on a place to live and we can move in around oct. 10th. goodbye, thanks for checking in.



for everyone else and for my journal purposes...



so as many of you know a couple of months ago dominick and i began to question our address and thinking about seeking a new one. after some praying, discussing, coin flipping and talking we decided to move to colorado.(there really wasn't any coin flipping, at least i don't think so) we have both wanted to call colorado home for a while and thought now was the time.


thus it began. we made a trip to colorado to check out some towns. at first we were thinking golden, co. and some other places until we rolled into ft. collins. it didn't take much time to know that is where we really wanted to be.



so we started packing up everything we own....


and took off.

we had talked to my brother, luke and his wife, ashley and were planning to stay with them while we found our own place and hopefully some jobs. they live in loveland which is about 15-20 min south of ft. collins.

so even though it felt like a long time it was also one of those, 'before you know it' kind of things. i found myself in one of our jeeps, following dominick in our other jeep pulling our u-haul.

and for those of you who haven't made the drive to colorado from texas, it's a long one. it gave me plenty of time to start freaking out. thoughts like, "what the heck are we doing?" "what were we smoking?" and "what is it going to be like to live on the street?" had plenty of time to fester in my brain.

so after two very long days of driving we made it into town and were unloading our boxes into a storage unit. we were almost done and we had just taken some things out of one jeep and i let the back hatch drop, forgetting that the bike rack was still strapped to it. it hit me on the head, right on the right eye brow. i still have a little knot.

well that was all it took. all the emotion, worries, sadness, excitement caught up with me. i started to cry big crocodile tears.

thankfully my husband is really nice to me. he helped me sit down in the front seat of the car and hugged me for a while. i started to get back up to get back to work and he told me to just sit and rest and he finished unloading by himself.

i got it together after that and we headed to luke and ashley's. it was great to see them but we were so tired we only hung out for a few minutes and it was off to bed for us.

we rested on sunday and on monday got to work looking for jobs. we have both had a few interviews but it is a tough market out here and i started feeling pressure. not just any jobs were good enough. not for us. we needed jobs that impressed people. i was really thinking this way. i was imagining how i might feel or what people might think when i tell them what we were doing for work.

so gross to remember.

anyway, that sinful pride was practically doubling the pressure i was already feeling. i was being so nice to dominick despite dealing with all this pressure. (that was sarcasm, possibly not best portrayed in written form)

looking for jobs is a full-time job in itself. finally friday afternoon came around. we both decided that it was the weekend and there wasn't much else we could do at that point so we might as well relax a little bit and enjoy our new state.

so saturday we went to rocky mountain national park.

it was a beautiful day and a beautiful hike. we hiked to emerald lake, a pristine lake at the base of two mountains. sitting beside the lake, eating our sandwiches and observing the Lord's creation, His sweet conviction of my sinful heart began. i remembered that i am small, a lesson that comes quickly when i am around mountains and the ocean. dominick and i have been pretty tight with our money lately trying to save up and get ready to move. during this time i have made a list of all the things i want to buy when we are back in the money. sitting there observing the beauty of the Lord's creation i thought of all the earthly things i trade for the His goodness. how i long not for the Lord's presence but the crap this world produces.



it's sick.



we finished the hike with these things on my mind.



sunday morning we tried a church that dominick had heard about from a seminary friend of his. we loved it. it is called missio dei and everyone was very nice. it is a recent church plant so it is relatively small. as soon as we walked in people came over to introduce themselves and welcome us. we met one man who had moved from oregon to help with the church plant. we asked him what he does in ft. collins and his reply, "i deliver pizza."



that was all it took, "i deliver pizza." for the whirlwind of conviction on my heart that has not stopped since. i spent a lot of last week asking Jesus for mercy, but i meant in the forms of great jobs and a place to live. i did not mean the kind of mercy that makes me more holy.



i am seeing that i was not interested in an identity that was in Christ but one that revolved around my job title. it sounds so ridiculous now. and this is not a new issue. it is something that i have blindly been prideful and sinful about for years. sick

conviction always hurts.



but what a good hurt.



that the God of the universe would mold my heart to make it more like His. that he would speak to me about my sin.



what a sweet gift. i am overwhelmed.



monday i had an interview and when i got done dom told me he had gotten a job and dazbog coffee and would begin his job as a barista the next day!!! i was pumped. he also told me we were accepted for the apartment that we loved. it is a quad-plex (if that is what they are called). not a duplex but a quad-plex?? anyway, we are getting a cute, 2 bedroom, garden apt. we were really thankful for the 2bdrs because we want to be able to host guest. dom's parents are coming in oct and i am excited! anyway. it was all great news. we get to stay here!!



later that night we met with the pastor of missio dei and his wife and we like them a lot. we look forward to getting to know them better. it was a blessing to sit around their kitchen table and talk about Jesus and how good He is.



sweet time.



so that has been my last week and half. if anyone actually read all that then i'm impressed.



thanks to everyone who has prayed for us, thought about us and given us encouragment. we are so grateful for your friendship.