Which brings me to the next piece of "change" that has come upon us. Towards the end of summer we went and visited a clinic in Memphis, TN. We both loved the people that were working there as well as the clinic's mission to serve the poor and needy in Christ's name. We prayed through our decision a lot and Marc eventually signed a contract with them in the early fall to begin work in late summer 2012. I had mentally prepared myself for warmer winters and closer proximity to some of my family in Arkansas and the friends I went to college with who have stayed in the Memphis area. And to be honest, I was really itching to get back to the South. It feels to me like I imagine a Snuggie feels (though I can say for sure I do not own one of those things), just comfortable.
Marc had asked me on a few occasions over the past few years what I would think about living in Peoria, Illinois (where Marc was born and many of his family still live.) I always answered him with a very prompt (yet polite) "no way." We had lived in Springfield, Illinois (just an hour south of Peoria) together for Marc's last two years of medical school after we were married. I'll go ahead and admit that I am a very poor sport about cold weather. We had street parking for the two years that we lived there and it was brutal during winter. Marc was in the hospital early many mornings so I was stuck scraping off snow or melting off ice with buckets of hot water. I remember pulling away from our house in a Budget rental truck as we headed to Wichita thinking, "Well, I won't ever be living through another winter like that again." Hmmm. How often in our lives do we tell God we are not going to do something and then he asks us to do that very thing?
I am sure you get where this is going, but fast forward to November 12th. Marc had just spent the weekend in Louisville for an annual medical missions conference and came home to share with me some shocking news. "I think we are supposed to live in Peoria for the next few years." What??? I mean what about the... and did you forget about the... and don't you remember about the.... I was full of lots of reasons that this seemed crazy, but I agreed to pray about it and agreed that Marc could "look" for job opportunities. As I was praying (selfishly I'll confess) that nothing would work out while Marc began seeking employment, God began to move mountains before my eyes. It became undeniably obvious to me that Marc was right and our ministry was meant to be amongst family and friends in Peoria. The director with Christ Community Health Services in Memphis was very gracious to release Marc from his contract and give him his blessing as well. Then, two days later, on December 7th, Methodist Medical Center flew Marc out to interview him for a job. He was given an offer for that job as well as another great job within two days. See what I mean when I say moving mountains??? After heavily weighing the two jobs, this past Wednesday Marc accepted an offer with Methodist to come on as faculty with their family medicine residency program in Peoria. It is a wonderful fit for Marc's giftings and God has already brought alongside Marc another faculty physician who was a missionary in India for seven years (and also played football years ago at the same college Marc played at!) and has offered to be a mentor for Marc. I am looking forward to meeting his wife and kids when we visit in a few weeks for Christmas.
I am totally at peace with this change at this point, but it has been a painful process for me to say the least to get here (and for Marc as well to watch me pour out my tears to him over the past several weeks). I can say for sure that through this time of having to trust and depend on God my faith has grown even deeper in a beautiful way. This is probably the "wordiest" post I have done in a while, but I felt like it would be much easier to write all this out once for our family and friends who read our blog and may not know all that we have been up to in the last month.
It has certainly been busy with this job change and our preparations for our upcoming trip in January to Niger. Marc thought we should go out and celebrate after my last day of work on Thursday. We went out to eat with Eli and Hailey and then drove around to look at Christmas lights afterwards. It was a wonderful night.
We have been trying to break Eli's thumb sucking. We started with some cool band aids as a "reminder." It worked well for a few days but now he just takes them off when he wants his thumb back. Oh, well. :)
Life is good. Even if it has to be one spoonful at a time.
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