You may remember my post way back in May 2021. The hardest thing I’ve ever done was moving away from my church family and so many people who loved me, to the middle of somewhere close to nowhere.

I started bawling my last day at church, when nearly half the church was coming up to me, giving me hugs, told me they were proud of me, and knew I could do anything I set my mind to. They prayed for me and their love and care shone through. It made me doubt if I was making the right decision.

Should I move nearly 22 hours away from my home in the Shenandoah Valley to somewhere I’d never even visited – all for a Ph.D.? (Spoiler alert…part of that question never came true).

I love science, and I wanted to obtain a Ph.D. so that I could homeschool my children without scrutiny. Religious exemption for homeschooling keeps getting removed by states year after year, and the states keep involving themselves in education. And with the amount of education I have right now as I’m writing this…that’s not really a good thing. However, most states have rules that if one or more parents have higher education, such as a Ph.D., that’s okay. So that was my goal. Obtain a Ph.D. so that I could homeschool my children.

But was it the right decision? I had an amazing job for the state of West Virginia as a food microbiologist. And while I had moved away from the state where my church was, and didn’t come home every weekend, it was still an easy drive to visit my sister and parents over the weekend, only being a couple of hours away.

As I drove home from church that Sunday, I wasn’t sure if I would be back, and it saddened me that many of my friends (being much older than me) may not be on earth anymore by the time I came back. After I had moved, my new state was nice, definitely had some better perks, but it was so…flat. And boring. The sky is huge though, there are fewer mountains in the way. And I’ve gotten to see the Aurora Borealis (I took the picture on this post).

But after I’d moved out here and evaluated my options, I figured once I finished my Ph.D., I’d move back to somewhere on the East Coast. Likely back to my home state, and get a job somewhere – I wasn’t quite sure if it would be in research or teaching. I missed the mountains, my friends, everything I’d ever known.

Little did I know, I was moving towards some things I hadn’t even imagined.

About a month into my summer research for my Ph.D. advisor on bat coronaviruses, my advisor introduced me to his newest Ph.D. student.

He said his name was Matt, and being the polite young southern lady my parents raised me to be, I said hello.

That’s it. That’s all I said. I had about four reasons for my greeting:

1) Past experience taught me that any guy I was interested in was already dating or didn’t like me back, so there really wasn’t any point in trying

2) This state was not where I was going to stay for forever

3) My phylogenetic analysis was really annoying and I could not get the program to do what I wanted it to do. I’d been there a month, and I’d been finding some really cool information on bat coronaviruses (and working in a BSL-3 lab, which was an amazing experience), and I wanted to prove to my gruff, bossy advisor that he made the right decision picking me

4) Talking to people is a lot of work, and I’m not great at it

But Matt kept talking to me. When we were in the graduate student “lounge” (it wasn’t impressive, just some desks and some really, really white walls), he’d ask me about my day, research, family. At first, I just politely answered his questions, but then I started asking him about himself. Turns out I thought he was kind of interesting…until he mentioned he was in the Pride as an undergrad. I was so disappointed. Anytime I get interested in someone, something happens!

Turns out, a few days later, I learned that the Pride is not the same as pride. One is the name of a school band…the other is not. Then he asked me if I wanted a tour of the town. You know, the 13 square mile town I’d moved to two months prior. I’d already discovered what my new city had (Walmart…another grocery store…that was about it. Now it has a TJ Maxx though!), but now that I knew the difference between the Pride and pride, I said yes. That drive ended up with us at Taco Bell, about 5 hours of time had elapsed.

I called my parents after he dropped me off at my place and told them all about it. Then they mentioned that it sounded like I’d been on my very first date.

Was it really? What did that mean for my plans? What did God have in mind?

I went to bed giddy about the amazing time I’d had, although I had some burning questions in the back of my mind.

If you are not 100% sure that you will go to Heaven when you die, now is the time to repent and put your trust in Jesus Christ! If you have any questions or doubts about your salvation, click here to learn more.