The 5 Year Coloradoversary

I can’t believe it. We have lived in Colorado for five years now. Sometimes it feels like way longer and sometimes it still surprises me that I don’t live in Texas. But here we are, five years in. As I was reflecting on all the things, I remembered that I wrote a blog post right when we moved here so I had to take a look (and you can too if you want!). It made me smile to think of that girl entering this brand new world and chapter, not having any idea what to expect. I was definitely gun shy on this whole idea of moving my little family to a different state serving a church family that I had just met. It was a whole new element of trusting God in a big way. Something funny about being a ‘transplant’ is that we still get asked often if we plan on staying. If this is what we would consider our forever home. If we love it. If we miss Texas. So why not just answer all of that here?! Plus it only felt right to commemorate this 5 year Coloradoversary with all the words that I feel about this state, this move, our life here.

Here we are, arriving at a house we had never even seen! Straight rented it off Craigslist praying it would be fine. Our movers didn’t show up for days later without feeling the need to tell us or give us any kind of ETA. So clearly that all felt like a really great start. However, the house ended up being a sweet little beginner house for us in Colorado! (If you haven’t heard, Texas and Colorado aren’t quite the same in the house pricing department. Like at all.) Caleb was not even a year old yet so it was quite the feat to move and get unpacked without knowing anyone!

Moving to Colorado in fall is a HUGE bonus. It’s like I showed up in a movie with the changing of seasons and colors. Never thought that was an actual thing before. And then the snow. It was all so fun!

When we moved here, my heart was in a place of healing and also expectancy for what God had in store. I hoped so hard that God’s faithfulness would show up in a mighty way through this new church and our new ministry here. And I can honestly say it did! We were embraced and welcomed immediately and I even mention in that 5 year old blog post, it naturally felt like home. Which is exactly what our hearts needed.

We flew out to Colorado for Nick’s interview in August and moved out in September. At his interview, I was so nervous about whether this would be a good move for us. With our history, I didn’t want to miss ANYTHING during the interview. I kept wracking my brain for any and all questions to ask. But through it all, God just kept putting my heart at peace. The last day we were here, one of the staff wives sat on the church floor with me (because I had a 10 month old crawling machine) and shared all about what it looked like to be on staff and a pastor’s wife at this church. It was unprovoked and the most encouraging thing to me at that time. God totally knew I needed that. And like they say, the rest is history.

The hardest part about moving was leaving behind my entire family and my amazing friends. My sister and I had both just had a baby and only lived like two miles from each other. Talk about hard to leave. The moment Nick accepted the position, we began praying for this next chapter and specifically for a great community for our family. I was so intentional with putting myself out there the entire first year we lived here. I never turned down an offer to hang out and constantly showed up alone to events nervously hopeful. It certainly was not easy and probably the most difficult part is how much time it took. Good friendships don’t just happen over night and I felt years behind in all of the friendships around me. But here we are, five years later, surrounded by a fantastic community that we love and love us right back.

So will we stay? The planner in me wishes it was that easy! Do we hope to stay? Absolutely. We have fallen in love with our church, our town, our state (Nick had a head start in this department!). Everything in me hopes this is our forever place. But the tricky thing is it’s not quite up to us, is it? We serve a sovereign God that has a plan for our life that we want to always follow. If you would have asked me eight years ago, I would have said that I wanted my forever home to be Texas. So obviously we stay open-handed to God’s will, but our desire would be for Colorado to stay our home!

Do I miss Texas? You better believe it! I yearn for the coast during the summer months. My heart hurts anytime I miss out on something because of distance. I hate that friends and family can’t be just a quick weekend road trip. I miss the sweet tea, GOOD Mexican food, southern accents and all the things I didn’t even realize were ‘southern’ until I moved here. Texas will ALWAYS have my heart.

It’s safe to say I love our life here. Our new house that God blessed us to buy in a great neighborhood with friendly neighbors (not always a guarantee!). Our boys growing up in a gorgeous environment with mountains surrounding us. The opportunity to spend so much time in God’s glory that is the outdoors here. (Sorry Texas, not much compares to the mountains here.) The people that we get to live life with daily. The church where we are both able to serve on staff together. This is home.

A running joke in our fam is that Caleb & I are Team Texas and Nick & Luke are Team Colorado since that’s where we were all born. We often split up in ‘teams’ for any contest or competition that is happening. I’m sure Nick wishes that Luke would get a little older to help him out a little because Team Texas is blowing them out of the water.

So there it is, folks! A bit of an update and celebration of 5 years in Colorado. God is faithful. His ways are FAR greater than ours.