Once Upon a Time

When I graduated college there was absolutely no way that I was going back home. Not that the town my parents lived in was home, but just did NOT want to be stuck in a town (Podunkville, as I derisively called it) where I didn't know anyone and felt like a failure to boot.
Needless to say, the place I had no desire to be was exactly the place I stayed. I lived with mom and dad for a month and then moved across town into my own apartment. For that first year I saw them about once week, and only then if I needed to do laundry.

My parents moved to Circleville my sophomore year at Olivet, so the only people I knew was my family. The church they went to was definitely not for me either. The closest person to my age was my younger brother.
So for the first 3-4 months I was friendless. During this time I was working as a construction secretary. For the first few months I HATED it! I had a college education and I felt like I wasn't doing what I should be doing...And then I began to like my job, even love my job. I liked the people I worked with and began to hang out with them more and more after work. I began to be not the person that I should've been. Instead of being an influence for Christ, I was influenced to do things I ought not have done.
I was given an oppurtunity to leave Circleville. I was ecstatic. This was going to be great. I would get to travel, do a job that I had come to love, and I wouldn't be in this stupid little town, stuck there with no friends (the people I worked with were all construction workers and most of them traveled constantly over the U.S. looking for specific work).
But I didn't end up going. At that point I had made a few local friends in the area, but I had no one tying me to this place...I could've left. There are times when I'm amazed that I didn't. But I also know that if I had left with the way that my life was heading, I wouldn't have just said good-bye to this town, but also to my relationship with Jesus.

I have always been very independant of my family. This is not to say we don't love each other or have a wonderful relationship, because my family is amazing - It's just that we've never had to be close geographically to still be a family, to know that we love one another.
It's been almost three years since I decided to stay - my brothers and I are closer thatn we've ever been before, I visit my parents almost every day, I have friends who think I'm swell (boy don't I have them fooled), and I LOVE Circleville. The town grows on you and I would definitely not mind staying here for a good long while.
But at the same time I know that if (and in my heart I know that when) the Lord leads me somewhere else I will be okay. My family will always be there when I need them, my friends are only a phone call away and my Jesus is right by my side throughout everything.
I never thought I would be in Ohio this long, but who knew that living in Podunkville U.S.A. would have had such an impact on making me the woman God wanted me to be.

As Shakespeare said, "The past is prologue." My story is just beginning.