Never did I ever think we would be moving for the third time in twelve months. But here we are. And we are choosing it. Let me explain.

In the summer of 2018, Danny interviewed for jobs. In residency, you typically interview one year in advance to secure your job following residency. Danny interviewed at several local places and also some that were a few hours away. After all his interviews, he had narrowed it down to two places. So we began to pray. I should also mention I was 8 months pregnant. We had a lot to consider. I truly can say we have never prayed about something more than we did this. We listed the pros and cons, we discussed all that needed to be discussed, and we asked God to either open doors or slam them closed. We asked for peace about what we should do. In September, we signed with his current practice. The change felt exciting for me but leaving family didn’t.

I have one sibling and since college he always lived away. We got married the same year and have babies that are close in age as well. In February of 2018 he moved home. We were so excited to all be in one place for the first time. Andddd we signed a contract that would move us one hour away. Our family has always been close. We vacation together and have weekly family dinners. We were having a good attitude about it all. We were excited and we would make things work. I will admit, when I felt complete peace about moving one hour away, it was confusing.

Then, on November 30 our lives changed. Andrew was in a plane crash that he did not survive. It rocked our world. Like never before. {You can read about that here} How could I leave my family after this? We honestly didn’t think about our move for a few weeks, because we were simply surviving. When we did have to confront it, we started praying again. And again, we both felt 100% that we should move. I shouldn’t feel good about moving one hour away from my family eight months after losing my brother and while I certainly didn’t feel good, I did feel peace. Peace that could only come from God.

The next months were hard because we knew we would be leaving soon. We spent tons of time with family. That’s all we knew to do. Cling to Jesus and each other.

We actually decided to build a house at our new location. That was a process that I loved so much but it was stressful building an hour away. There’s just something about picking out every single detail in your house. It was fun! Our house wasn’t quite ready when Danny’s job started, so we lived in a duplex that our builder owned in July 2019. It was a nice space to live in while we waited. Not everything we owned would fit in the duplex, so we put about half our stuff in storage and moved half with us. The last thing I wanted was to be surrounded by stuff, so we kept it very simple. The crazy thing is, we truly did not miss most of our stuff. Pretty eye opening. The duplex was built in the middle of farm. There was a small subdivision and the duplexes were on a street within the neighborhood. We were surrounded by crop fields, a creek, and tons of animals. I loved it! The sunrise and sunset was my absolute favorite.

In October, our house was ready. Finally. 🙂 If you’ve ever built a house, you know you always have to add on at least a month to the finish date because something always delays the process. It’s no one’s fault, it’s just part of building. So we moved our things from the duplex and also the things from our {2} storage units. We were finally in our home.

Moving to a new city was adventurous and fun. We started meeting new friends and getting connected in our new city. Our church actually has a satellite site here which was a perfect transition. I will not lie, it did feel like we were moving to the boonies. However, we have a chick fil a, target, and hobby lobby so I was good to go. Emma absolutely loved her new school and teacher and we did too. Danny was settling in to his new job and I was connecting with other moms.

Then, an opportunity came. An opportunity for Danny to work at a practice that is ten minutes from where we moved. Where my family lives. Home.

I won’t go into all the details, but I will say this… only God could have orchestrated all the moving pieces just so. So in May 2020, Danny accepted a job in our home town. And we are moving. For the third time. In one year. Pray for us. Seriously.

We are so excited. Sad to leave this sweet little town we have grown to love but so very excited for this opportunity.

So that is the story about our three moves in one year.

If you want to follow along in our journey, you can find me on Instagram @heysarahbarlowe.