Change.

Change.

Everyone handles it differently.

For years, I’d felt stuck and prayed for a change – a new city or a new job. Something drastic. And then unexpectedly, September 2016 sparked a major change in my life. My husband and I were offered jobs at a university in a new city over 1,000 miles away from our families.

And then a wave of change began. A new city. A new career. No family. No friends.

With all the drastic change in such a short period of time, I wasn’t sure what to expect or how to handle myself, but I was excited to start something new. I started my new job, worked hard to learn as much as I could while getting to know the new people who I worked with in an unfamiliar work environment. It was challenging to say the least.

This new job was in a career I never anticipated or planned for, but I knew God led us here for a reason and I was leaning on Him through it all.

It didn’t take long before I felt Satan’s lies piling on – whispers of deceit in my ear. It was almost immediate. “You’re a failure. You don’t belong here. No one likes you. You’re not good enough. You’re a burden. Everyone hates you.”

As much as it could be obvious to an outsider that those aren’t truths, for someone who has no family or friends to speak truth to you within the new city you live in, it can be nearly impossible to not begin to believe them.

Homesickness, loneliness, depression, and anxiety started to overwhelm me in addition to Satan’s lies. And when I was struggling to fight against believing them, God would hear the cry of my heart and rescue me.

He would send me an encouraging word, email, visit, or letter through someone I worked with to remind me that He is with me.

And through the first year I gained the understanding that with Satan working so hard to get me to leave this place, it actually reveals how much God needs me to be here. And when his lies try to drown out the truth, that realization and God’s strength is what I cling to.

“Hear my cry, O God,
listen to my prayer;
from the end of the earth I call to you
when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock
that is higher than I,
for you have been my refuge,
a strong tower against the enemy.”
{Psalm 61:1-3}

God just led me to this passage that speaks truth in my first year here.

Next post…
I’ll touch on the profound experiences I’ve had at work, and the new relationships that have helped heal my fears.

Advertisement