He provides.

the last few weeks, God has shown me over and over again how much he provides for us- really driving home the point. in just the past couple months, i'm able to look back retrospectively and recognize how perfect his timing is- i could never plan my life out as well as he lays it out for me. he makes all the pieces fall together perfectly.

for starters, heidi has been wanting to live in california since about as far back as i can remember. in high school, she applied for colleges out there (pepperdine and mount saint mary), but it must not have been the right time yet, because she ended up in boston- about as far away from california as she could get. in her post-college job search she applied out there, but God put her in d.c. to do life with her sis for a couple years(!!!) and now once again, her heart leads her west...but this time God opened the door for it to actually happen and he put all the pieces together.

about a year ago, heidi told her boss that she didn't want to be in d.c. much longer because "she hates d.c." he seemed eager to open up a position for her in the san diego office, and talked about it like she would be out there before her lease ended...last year. that obviously didn't work out. the budget for the navy was cut and they weren't able to open up another position and her boss pretty much just told her what she wanted to hear.

this winter, being the resourceful and stubborn young woman that she is, heidi took it upon herself to once again job hunt on the west coast. she had an interview with a marketing company (new career? why not?) and was offered a second interview, which sounded super promising...but God had something better in mind! completely randomly (well, obviously i don't actually think it was random) at a conference in south carolina a few weeks ago, the people heidi works with on the west coast ran into some of her coworkers and the westies found out that HEIDI was the one who wanted to move to california. apparently her boss had only mentioned to the west coast office that "he had someone" who wanted to move out there.

well, once they found out it was my hard working sister (rather than some random they didn't know or work with very much), they wanted her. they still couldn't create a position for her though with no budget to do so. but about a week after the conference someone in the san diego office requested to transfer to texas and it's EXACTLY the job that heidi can fill with her skill set and current salary. i'd say "what are the odds"...but c'mon... so now she can move out there when her lease is finished here, and she'll have a stable job while she starts her new west coast life!

since i found out that heidi would be moving in july when our lease is up, i started on a hunt for a new place with jayne (a friend from school). God opened the door for what we hope will be the perfect place for us! jayne found a 3 bedroom, 3 1/2 bathroom 3 level townhouse on craigslist. it has 2 underground parking spots in a private garage and is right across the street from a gym and a grocery store and right next to a trail for running. it was posted for a few weeks and wasn't getting any "bites" because the place was a mess (messy boys!). luckily for us, we got to see the house when the owners had just gotten back into town, so they were able to show us the place and explain to us everything they'd be doing to fix it up from the previous tenants.

even though we found the perfect place for us, jayne and i were in a bind because she would have to break her lease to start a new lease at the same time as me- and if she couldn't break it she'd be paying rent on two places at once. also, the lease on the new place started in june and my lease wasn't even up until july. we needed to find a third roommate to fill the third (much smaller) bedroom, but it was hard to find a third roommate to fill a bedroom in a house we hadn't yet committed to renting! what to do? i posted on my church's website that we were looking for a third roommate and i spread the word among friends, and i got 5 responses in 2 days! unexpected, to say the least.

one of the responses (which sounded like it would be the best fit for us) was a girl our age, who found out about the room on my church's website, but she goes to a neighboring church (and already has a bedroom that size and loves to vaccuum). perfect! she was able to meet up with us on sunday to see the house, the three of us chatted for 20 minutes outside to see if we thought we'd be able to live together, and we signed a lease yesterday! i don't think the timing could have been any better. the house is a reasonable price (the landlord is giving us 1/2 off rent for the month of june when we have overlapping leases), the location is great and i'm really looking forward to getting to know charity, our third roommate, who will be just down the hall from me. some of you may think it's nuts to live with someone you don't know- but i say- you're crazy. it's awesome. we already found out we have some friends in common, and the girl talk between the three of us has already begun!

...and here's my current study song on repeat.