The following is an excerpt from a post I put on my family's forum style webpage. A great aunt and uncle had both posted with their advice on life and God's direction. Here was my response. I know I'm not the most eloquent writer, but this is something that moves me more than most things, so I tried to lay it out succinctly.

The very interesting part is that while Mike and I have been praying ever since he lost his job, and we feel like God has been very quiet. The pattern Mike and I see ourselves in time after time is that when we finally fully surrender emotionally, physically, mentally, etc., is when an opportunity finally arrives. That surrender does not, so far, seem to be something that we can just say, "Okay God, we surrender. Show us what to do!" It takes time to get there. But once again we feel like we got there within the last week or two, and then something came through. I don't think that Mike and I ever get this impression that God directly tells us, "Go! And do ABC and XYZ." So far all of our direction has come in the way of opportunities being opened and closed. Sometimes we try to force opportunities that do not necessarily, in hindsight, seem to be the ones that God had as the best option. Like going to Minnesota. We went there for very selfish reasons, and had a very difficult time there as a result. Two of our first years of marriage were spent in a place with almost no friends, a culture that neither of us really adjusted to, and no church. While it strengthened our marriage, it was not an ideal situation. Following Mike's graduation, we prayed a lot about where we would end up. And once we reconciled ourselves to doing whatever God put in our way, we got an offer for Pittsburgh where we have loved it almost since day 1. A few months ago, Mike lost his job, and again we wondered if somewhere we had made the wrong decision. We don't yet have the luxury of years or even months of hindsight, but I'm sure that as we move farther away from this point in time, we will continue to see a tapestry being woven from the fibers of our lives. At this point I just praise God that we have been able to find a way to stay here at least a little longer. I really don't like moving, and having roots, friends, and an adopted family means more to me than I think I'll ever be able to express in words. If God speaks more clearly in the coming days and months and says that other opportunities are the direction we should take, we'll do it, but I'm glad that has been postponed at least for a while. But for now I'm going to go soak up a glorious Sunday morning.