My experience with this part of Florida began in August of last year. Jeremy flew down here for an interview. While he was very excited about the job and the work he would be doing he basically told me I was going to hate the town we would live in. A few weeks after that Jeremy had accepted the job and we flew down as a family to try to find a place to live and just check the area out. The job Jeremy has changes hands quite often. Not because of the job, everyone who's ever worked it loves the job. Mostly because the wives and families of the men working the job dislike the area so much. If you like small town living this place is for you. If you enjoy taking a trip to "town" every now and then or making a long list of things that you cannot buy at the local Family Dollar and then heading to Wal-mart when the list gets too overwhelming then this place is for you. If you like having things accessible to you
(parks, recreation, shopping, etc) then you're kinda outta luck because it's just not in the near vicinity of this place. The first time we drove down the road to our small town I just wanted to cry. We left North Georgia with the beautiful mountains and the "southern" way of life
(I never met a stranger in Georgia, everyone you met was your instant good friend) and came down here where the land is flat and the attitude is more small town and people know you're not from here because they didn't go to high school with you. From the moment we moved here we felt out of place. People were not friendly and I missed the south so much! I know we're from Florida, but we're from "southern" Florida. Otherwise known as L.A.... -(Lower Alabama :)- Thankfully we found our church, and the people there are super nice, but we still felt alone. I have tried not to vocalize too much how unhappy I've been here, at least to Jeremy, because I know he can't do anything about the people who live in our town, or where we live to be honest. -You know how when you go to a realtors office and they give you one of those little books that has all these pictures of houses for sale? Well in our town the realtor just hands you one page and the houses are printed on it. Sometimes it will be a large sheet of paper folded in half and will have houses on front and back. There's not a lot of choice in houses, much less rentals.- Anyways, I've complained a lot in my heart and in my mind. I really was hating the way I was feeling. I am not a super outgoing, totally happy person all the time, but I feel like I've learned the last few years
(esp. after all we went through with IF) how to be content. I was having a really hard time with contentment. People would come and visit and say that the town wasn't so bad. I made excuses as to why they couldn't see how miserable it was to live here. Recently I've been really convicted about my attitude. This is going to sound really cheesy and weird, but one day we were driving around down near the river in our town. It was so beautiful. I was looking at the trees and the water and I realized that I am choosing to be miserable. I don't know if it's because I want to move home, if it's because this is definitely not my ideal place to live, I don't know what it was but it was a choice. I have a healthy family. I have a happy little boy who doesn't care at all what town we live in as long as he lives with his Mommy and Daddy. God has given me everything I need to be happy and I'm choosing to be miserable. I am basically telling God that even though he put me here for a reason I think he messed up and should hurry and move us somewhere else. Of course I realized how foolish I had been and decided that when things come up (and they will) that bother me I will think of good things, honest things, lovely things (phil. 4:4-8) because I am right where God wants me to be. Happiness has been given to me by God no matter my circumstances, it is my job to realize that and accept it. After that day things have been different. Not because of me, I'm sure. I don't have it in myself to change my heart, that takes divine intervention :) My heart is no longer critical of this town or the people in it. I have found a sliver of beauty here and I'm holding on to it! I believe that if I stay here forever I will be happy and fulfilled. Yes, I still want to move back home, but I want to be in God's will, no matter where that happens to be. I choose happiness.
3 comments:
This is such a good post :) You know I struggled with this myself. I still do sometimes, but, that's bound to happen when such awesome sisters are so far apart :) I' glad you've found the happy in yor town. I was getting to where I even hated my little house. One day I was thinking abot how small it is, how low the ceilings are, how the floor slopes, and it hit me how happy we were when we found out it was ours. We were elated and the place was still a dump! It made me feel guilty for being so ungrateful for soething that was obviously a God given blessing. I've been seeing the beauty in the small things ever since and been much happier for it. :)
you have no idea how much i can relate to this post. my comment would be forever long though if i went into it. maybe i'll just blog about it sometime. i appreciate your honesty, and i am glad for you.
Thank you for this. Yes, you're right. I definitely need to work on this too! xoxo
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