We were married for 36 years before we had the freedom to choose where we wanted to live. Our careers and caring for my aging mother kept us firmly planted in Hickory. But shortly before the pandemic Mother went Home at the age of 94, and then during the pandemic Mike’s company upgraded his home office with technology that enabled him to work remotely from anywhere.

The pandemic hit us hard in other ways however. Our daughter-in-law was seven months pregnant when the world shut down and our older granddaughter Rachel was only a toddler. The world suddenly seemed hostile to the whole idea of sheltering two fragile young lives.

We hustled to keep their young family safe from exposure, but with no daycare available for Rachel it was no easy task. We kept the road from Hickory to Cornelius hot, commuting back and forth to help our kids manage the many challenges that they faced. Our biggest blessing at the time was the fact that the one-hour drive allowed us to travel from door to door without compromising our safe little bubble of isolation.

It was during this time that the Lake Norman area began to grow on me, and having “Mimi” and “Papa” around so often was clearly beginning to grow on Rachel. I started to feel God’s gentle but undeniable tug at my heartstrings that Cornelius was where He wanted us to be.

But we had never called any place other than Hickory home. We had a beloved church family with whom we had done life for decades. We had moved into what we thought was our dream house only a few years before. How could God possibly expect us to walk away from all of that? It just didn’t make sense, or at least it didn’t at the time.

Then the awful day came when we left Rachel in a puddle of tears when the time came for us to head back to Hickory. I was crying even harder in the car as we drove away. I looked over at Mike and sobbed, “Something just has to give.”

And guess what that “something” was? It was our total lack of trust in God’s good plan for us. It was our failure to believe that God always knows what He is doing even when we do not. In short, it was surrendering control of our destiny and letting God take the lead. Was it hard? Only the hardest thing we’d ever done up until then.

But once we swallowed hard and started praying for God to reveal His will to us, the stars started to align so quickly that it almost made our heads spin. Against all odds in a red-hot real estate market that saw houses vanishing off the market before they were even listed, the perfect house in Cornelius became available that was within walking distance of our kids’ house. And spoiler alert!! The house was right across the street from some really nice folks by the name of Kelly.

Miraculously the house wasn’t snapped up for four whole days until we could get down here to look at it. The asking price was above the upper limit that we had decided upon, but the owners agreed to accept the best offer that we could afford to make anyway. And then our house in Hickory sold in just twelve hours. God was truly paving the way for our move to Cornelius. to be continued….