Why Washington?

Several days ago I said I'd write about the desire/calling/inspiration to go to Washington. Here goes.

In 2004 we went to Washington on vacation. I fell in love with it. It wasn't any one thing in particular, but more the way I felt there. I liked the landscape--it felt wide open, light, relaxed. I loved the mountains, the endless fields of berries and potatoes, the beautiful water. I even liked the rain, which cools things off rather than leaving a hot, muggy feeling.

I love Virginia; it has been home since I was a baby. I left twice (once for the Army, the other for grad school in Texas), but each time I came back. The second time, after ten years in Fort Worth, I found my wife, who is from Washington.

It was about a year after we married that we traveled to Northwest Washington to see where she grew up. And though I love Virginia, I felt something I'd never experienced while I was in Washington. A sense of home. A feeling as if God were saying, "This is home."

I am not one who says, "God told me..." I've never heard God's voice, or had a revelation that clearly revealed God's will about something.

But there have a been a handful of times when I have sensed God's spirit leading me in something, or planting a seed in my mind.

One time came while in Texas. I had been teaching for a year at Heritage Christian Academy. I prayed and thought about quitting my job to pursue something else, and wasn't getting a clear indication of what I should do. I quit my job, and immediately the uncertainty left and I had a clear, strong feeling that I had done the wrong thing.

It didn't go away, so a few days later I went to my boss, told her I had been wrong, that I believed I was supposed to stay at the school. She agreed, and took me back, and I taught there for five more wonderful years.

Anyway, in Washington, I had a sense that God was showing me where we were to be. I didn't know how or when. When we came back to Virginia, I told Jamie about my "feeling" or "impression."

She wasn't too interested. She didn't really have a desire to go back to Washington; she wanted to be in Colorado. I didn't push it; and the feeling kind of went to the back of my mind when we got back into life in VA.

A couple years later we went to Washington to visit again. And that same feeling came back, strong, clear, obvious. Home. This is home. This is where we belong.

I told Jamie, "Remember that feeling I had a couple years ago, that maybe we are supposed to be in Washington? I got it again last time we were there."

This time, her response was different; "You know what, I was kind of feeling the same thing, too."

I was in my seventeenth year of grad school, and didn't think my journey would survive another transfer, so we decided to stay at least until I finished my MDiv. But both of us were now thinking about moving across the country to Washington.

In the last couple years Jamie's desire to move has grown. Mine has stayed steady; I have just been waiting for the right time. We thought it was going to happen last year when I interviewed with a church in Anacortes, but it didn't.

So we tried again this year, and the pieces have fallen into place. Several people encouraged me to look at Logos Bible Software as a potential employer. My sister-in-law Linde sent me a link to the job for which I was eventually hired.

It wasn't easy; the application/interviewing process involved one video interview, two trips to Washington, and several weeks of negotiating before it was settled. Now we are in the midst of packing and selling off unnecessary stuff and figuring out how to move our family of five and all our belongings 3000 miles.

Exciting and scary. But we believe we're going where we are supposed to be.

Next up--what we leave behind. That's gonna be a hard one to write.