A Thousand Words of an Ordinary Girl: Where have the Pfenning's been?

Okay, so it's been about 8 months since I've last posted about what's been going on in our lives. Before, Keven and I were happily living in our tiny apartment at Charleston Southern University. We had just graduated in May, were working (Keven at Piggly Wiggly, myself as a Nanny), hanging out with friends, and enjoying the beach just minutes away. As the lease was coming to an end to our apartment we were seeking the Lord as to where our next step would be. Would we stay in Charleston, stick with our jobs, stay with our friends, and apply to graduate schools. Or would we move back towards one of our homes and be close to family, find full time "grown up" jobs, and apply to graduate schools there. Well after much prayer we felt the Lord calling us to leave our jobs, friends, and church and move back to Winston-Salem, NC (where I'm from).

Ideally, you have jobs lined up, a place to live, and you can move and start a new chapter in your life. However, both of us had applied to dozens of jobs in NC and hadn't heard anything. Leaving us uncertain if we should risk renting a place to live without jobs and blowing through what we had worked so hard to save up. So, another obstacle to overcome. After more prayer we decided to ask my dad and stepmom if they would help us out and let us move in until we could get off of our feet. I know what most of you are probably thinking: wait, you and your husband are married, you're not supposed to live with your family, you're supposed to be able to provide for yourselves and be on your own, you're grown ups now. And I would say you're right, I understand where you're coming from. However, now a days it's a lot harder to get a "grown up job" with a college degree -- I'll cover that in a later post. Thankfully, my parents didn't want to see us go bankrupt and have more debt than my loans, so they invited us to live with them until we got off on our feet.

This has been such a blessing to us. (You see, my parents divorced when I was just 5 years old, and we were living in California at the time. A few years later my mom moved my brother and I to NC once she married my stepdad. So, I only saw my dad during summers and Christmas breaks. Then when I was in middle school my dad accepted a fire chief position in Baghdad after the war broke out. This left my brother and I to only see him less than 4 weeks a year, and sometimes it was just a week or two. Finally, during my senior year of high school my dad quit his job in Baghdad and wanted to be closer to us here in NC. Well after that year I went to college for the next four years and could only spend time with family during breaks or some weekends). So, you can see how I've never had the opportunity to live with my dad and build a genuine relationship. Before our relationship felt like a genetic one, you know where we knew we were related but there was never enough time spent to make a genuine connection. This move has been so great because we have hung out so much, done projects together, and have built an actual relationship with each other.

Sometimes you never realize why the Lord leads you places until you have time to look back on everything. So we moved up here at the first of July, ideally we would both get jobs and move out within a month -- ha we're funny. After a week of being here I helped out my stepmom at her job and I was a caretaker for an elderly lady part time. This lasted until October, when the family decided to move her into a home. So during that time I hadn't really been searching a whole lot for jobs, some every now and then, but not a lot. Keven had also been applying while I was working, the Lord blessed him with a part time job at Lowes Home Improvement in late August, then He opened a door for Keven to go full time -- HALLELUJAH

So it is now February, Keven is still working at Lowes, and I am still applying for jobs. You know, being unemployed does wonders for your ego and mood. I mean, when you apply to about 100 jobs and no one seems to select you, you have to think what is wrong with me? Thankfully, Keven has been super supportive and understanding and helped me get through this time. I know the Lord has a plan for me and is lining up the perfect job where He wants me to be, so for now I'll keep applying, applying, and applying and wait for that job to open up.