When we journeyed 1200 miles east and worlds away from Centralia, Washington to the Wild West atmosphere of, possibly, the last true boom town in North America - the oil fields of Williston North Dakota, we left behind so much that was...IS...dear to our hearts...set aside so many conveniences and comforts of daily living that we and most of the people we associate with back home take for granted and could hardly imagine living without. On the face of it, one might think we were just moving to another small Midwestern American town. Without actually experiencing it, there is really no way for me to explain or for those who have not lived here to fully comprehend the challenges that the reality of life here poses.
Many of you know the details of the circumstances that brought about Per's decision to quit the three (one full time and two part time) jobs that kept him constantly exhausted, unfulfilled, and running ragged. He was working so hard and yet still unable to reach the level of financial stability that would allow him to spend time with the family he was determined to support and longing to be a more present part of.
He had a friend who had recently picked up and moved his family to a state that was being heralded as the 'land of opportunity' in a Nation that was mostly reeling from the economic collapse of 2008/9. Where most towns were laying off people, and families were declaring bankruptcy in record numbers, unable to pay their mortgages on properties that had lost their value, North Dakota was boasting jobs at unreal wages for anyone willing to make their way there to claim them. Jobs were ripe for the picking - all you had to do was show up - and you would be hired and making thousands of dollars a month instantly. The only catch was, so many people were flocking to the area that housing was almost impossible to come by unless you either got company housing, were willing to pay through the nose ($2,500 a month for a 1 bedroom apt, anyone?), or brought your own housing (I.e. trailer, camper, tent, etc.).
So this friend convinced Per that this could be the answer to our financial situation. It seemed on the surface like a spur of the moment decision, but, looking back now, it was one that had actually been a long time in the making. In preparation, Per went to truck driving school in the summer of 2011, and one October day, he packed as much food and warm clothing as he could fit into our old 1971 Winnebago and drove off to make our fortune in the wild unknown country of Williston North Dakota. No job, no prospects, nowhere to live. Just the promise of great truck driving jobs for good wages with tons of overtime. The kids and I cried as we watched his tail lights disappear, and we prayed.
It ended up that Per rolled into Williston on a Monday morning and had a job within three days with a reputable company paying good wages with great benefits and housing...He only had to live in the Winnie for a couple of months in sub-zero temperatures before a space came open for him to live in the company provided man camp.
It was the biggest gamble we had ever taken as a family, and we prayed it would pay off. We had no idea it would be 3 months before we saw each other again, and the better part of a year before we were all living together under one roof once more. I could not have envisioned in my wildest dreams what roof it would be and where.
In May, the kids and I came out for a "short" visit to see Per and 2 weeks turned into a month turned into all summer, and as our time was winding down and we were discussing how much longer Per would stay and work before quitting and coming back home (he had made enough $ during his year there to pay off our outstanding bills), a totally unexpected turn of events occurred.
Per was offered a job as a deputy sheriff in McKenzie County, the line of work he had been trying for back in Centralia but The Lord had been closing all the doors there. It seemed now...here...the doors were swinging wide open. Per was beside himself with elation. He viewed this as a foot in the door to eventually obtain a lateral transfer back into the Centralia Police Department.
I, also, was beside myself. I was absolutely floored. If you are interested in how I viewed it, you can read about that in my blog, "Little Light on the Prairie". Suffice it to say, Per and I did not view it in the same light.
When the job offer became a firm reality, I went home in a daze to pack up our house and load a Uhaul trailer to move our family 1200 miles away from all I knew and loved while my husband finished up his 2 weeks notice with the trucking company. When he was done, he came home to help finish closing up the house and loading the vehicles with all our worldly possessions and driving us to our new life in North Dakota. We found out one week before we moved what town and what housing had been made available to us. It was a huge challenge deciding what to pack up out of a 2100 sq. ft house without knowing if we were going to be living in a camper, a trailer or a house. We were fortunate to be put into a 3 bedroom trailer in a small town named Alexander, halfway between the two larger towns of Williston and Watford City, in the heart of the Bakken Oil Boom. Of course I had packed about twice as much as we could comfortably fit in the house.
When we first got here, Per did not have time to help much with moving in or dealing with my culture shock as he had to hit the ground running in his new job the day after we arrived. I was still reeling from the whirlwind my life had become the moment I learned that Per was to become a cop in ND. It hadn't let up or slowed down, and now I was trying to learn a whole new planet, while settling
my daughter into a new school, supporting my husband in his new exciting job, and finding the measuring cups in the mountains of boxes in my new tiny living room.
Per trained for a month at his new job before leaving for Bismarck for his 3 month Police Academy. I didn't even know where Bismarck was, just that it was a 3 hour drive away from us, and that Per
would only be home on Weekends, if the weather was good. Wait, what!? Oh, yeah. This is North Dakota. They have WINTERS here. I didn't know what to expect, just that it could get to be -30* and lots of snow. That sounded cold, but you just don't really have any reference point for that kind of coldness when you're from a tropical climate like Washington State. I was scared. I was alone, and it was my job to somehow keep my children alive until spring, at least. No, I wasn't scared. I was terrified.
I knew with certainty that we would not survive the winter. I joked on the phone with family and posted positive , humorous Facebook posts about our new life here and even how God was working in my life and bringing all things together for our good. But I was beginning a decline emotionally that was linked with too many major lifestyle changes all at once and having no one to help me clarify my thoughts. I just knew I couldn't be weak. My husband needed my devotion and support so that he could 'be all he could be' and not have to worry about anything - I didn't want him to get distracted and killed on the job because he was worrying about whether his wife could keep it together and take care of things on the home front. I had to be strong for my kids who were also homesick and couldn't understand why daddy couldn't just get a job back home.
Without really realizing what was actually going on, I was beginning to become angry and bitter towards Per. I began feeling like he had selfishly pursued his dream and drug us along and deserted us out on the godforsaken frozen wasteland to fend for ourselves while he drove around doing his dream job. This was wildly unfair of me, considering I had told him repeatedly that he had my
support and we were in this together, our big adventure. The challenges of living in a remote location in a confining season were wearing deeply on me, however, and it was so hard to find words for my confused emotions that I found it easier to stay silent and just pretend I was ok. I built a wall of phony smiles and shallow topics of discussion between us, trying to hide all my feelings and be a tower of strength.
So many things factored into these challenges, from inner heart conditions (Lord, You can't seriously expect me to go THERE when my entire life is HERE!?"), to culture shock ("Where are my mountains and trees, family, friends, stores, paved roads, my house and school and church?"), to actual physical changes (non stop nose bleeds for David and myself from dry air, Bella becoming severely depressed and crying daily for her grandma, her best friend and home, and wildly varying temperatures from *110 in the summer to -*65 in the winter,) to name a few.
That first winter was my worst on married record because I totally took the reigns of my life out of Gods hands and became entirely self-absorbed. I was convinced that Per didn't care about the kids and I and I went into my infamous "fend for yourself" mode. It almost destroyed our marriage and Per wasn't even aware of the depth of danger because he was so busy trying to keep his own head above water learning all the ins and outs of his new job. Oh, he was well aware something was wrong with me, but whenever he would ask how I was doing, I would smile brightly, say "great!", and change the subject. This worked pretty well for me because, remember, Per was only able to be home for limited time on weekends and was busy even when he was here. He simply didn't have time to "break" me.
During this time I struggled more, fought harder, suffered more depression, cried more frequently, and clung to more anger than I ever have in any circumstance in my life before. I spent a great deal of time railing against God. Questioning, complaining, cursing, pleading, bargaining. Begging. Begging for God to take me out of this situation that was so far out of my comfort zone that I knew there was just NO WAY I could make it. It was a solid waste of time, as railing against God always is. I finally began to realize that God was not planning on taking me out of this "impossible" situation any time soon. Indeed, I began to get the sneaking suspicion that HE had hunkered down directly opposite me, to wait ME out. I am ashamed to admit that my constant prayer was: "Lord, please help me survive this Hell hole until I can get out of here."
It was a month after Per finished Police Academy before we finally were able to begin to find a new normal for our family, and start communicating. Once we were able to break through the walls I had built and I was able to express my fear, frustration, and anger and ask his forgiveness for the ways I had failed him and our marriage, he explained that he was feeling lonely and homesick too, his job had its own challenges, and he wasn't the monster I had turned him into in my self-absorbed mind. He was working his heart out for his family, and worried sick about his wife who apparently wasn't fooling him in the least with her phony smiles and meaningless words of reassurance. He knew his own wife, for goodness sake, and he hadn't seen her for a good long time.
This breakthrough was an instant turning point in our marriage for me, and I suddenly remembered how deeply in love I truly was with my husband and how desperately alone I had felt without him. Our bond suddenly went from almost severed to stronger than it had ever been and it felt almost as if we were back in our honeymoon stage. On this front, at least, I felt solid ground beneath my feet once more.
I began praying for Gods healing of my heart. For so long, I didn't want to be here. I wanted to go "home" to Centralia. This was not home. It was uncomfortable, inconvenient, hard, desolate, ugly, wrong. I couldn't comprehend building a life here and didn't see any reason why I should even attempt to try when I already had a life somewhere else. I would not settle here. I would just "hunker", and wait God out.
(Lol. I can't even write that out now without laughing out loud!)
But something happened while I was busy feeling these feelings. A new life was being forged in this desolate lonely place with every experience, every new day, every single grudging outing and contact I had to make....it all was creating the very thing I was so staunchly digging my heels in to avoid: Connection. History. Experience. Comfort. Memories. It was building A LIFE here in, of all unthinkable places, Northwestern North Dakota. Crazy. Incomprehensible. Unacceptable.
Unacceptable? Really?
That's when my prayers began to change from this:
"Lord, please help me survive this Hell hole until I can get out of here."
to this:
"Lord, I give up. Please forgive me for fighting against You, Your plan for my family, for me personally, and for the lessons You would have me learn here. Please give me peace where I am. Help me to not just exist. Not just wait and survive until I get out of a situation I don't want to be in. Teach me to LOVE where I am. To be joyful IN my circumstances for what they are, not in spite of them. Show me how to thrive in this place You chose to lead our family and how to trust that You have a good and meaningful plan for our lives, for MY life, here. Teach me to walk in Your peace, a peace that, I must admit, passes my understanding. I can't do any of this on my own. If You want me to walk in victory here, You're gonna have to carry me at first. Amen."
It was like those were the magic words He had been waiting to hear. I can almost imagine Him jumping up with a huge smile on His face and shouting, "Yes! NOW you're talkin'!" Because the changes in my heart began, though quietly and unobtrusively, immediately. I didn't even notice when my heart began to shift gears because, like so many things God does, He just ever so gently began removing the toxic thoughts and grudging resistance and replacing them with peace and joy.
It was during the quiet beginnings of this transformation that I found out another life-changing aspect of Gods plan for us here in Alexander: a new life was forming not only in my heart, but in my tummy! We were shocked and elated to learn that what we had finally given up hope of happening one more time was actually true! We were expecting again, a baby due the following Winter. God has His ways of taking our focus off ourselves and planting it back squarely where it should be. Once
again my family became my central focus, and that, combined with the smell of a fresh new spring in the air quickly revived my heart and renewed my soul. Things that had been ugly and foreign started looking strangely familiar and comforting, a positive challenge instead of an impossible feat.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that it has been a breeze here since then or that it was a one time deal and then everything was hunky-dory. I'm simply trying to say that what happened when I gave up control over my location and situation, an area I really had no control over anyway, was such a game changer for me here in terms of going from survival mode to bloom where you're planted mode that now I really can say I AM at peace here in Alexander, North Dakota. It is not an easy life, but it is easy to BE here. I'm not just "waiting God out" any longer. I'm not waiting at all. I'm living life. I'm loving life. The things I once viewed as trials and tribulations, I now actually find humorous, fun, and even an honor.
Crazy, right? I can't explain it. It's not because I'm a saint. Lol. I have people tell me how impressed they are with my maturity and strength because they could never do what I'm doing where I'm doing it. Please let me stop you right there and make sure we're crystal clear in the words of one of my favorite people: "it ain't me babe." God has done some miraculous things in my heart and mind. ALL of the glory goes to Him and zero to me. I'm such a stubborn mule on my own.
We have been here for 2 years now, praying and waiting for a job opportunity to come available back in our home town. Because even though I have learned to accept where I am, we still would love the opportunity to live near family, friends, and the community we have loved for so many years. Last fall a position was posted with Centralia P.D., and Per applied for it. There have been many delays but now we are reaching a time when uncertainty about our immediate future should come to a close. This very day, in fact, some decisions will be made that will have definite bearing on whether we are to go back "home" to a new job or if the job goes to another. Things are looking and sounding promising, but you never know until you know, right?
As we wait for word about the CPD job, I find myself having very mixed feelings in my soul. We have been waiting, it seems, forEVER, to go home; hoping, praying, some days HANGING on the dangling carrot of hope and regained " normalcy" that an affirmative nod from the CPD would promise to provide for our family. Such a shiny, sparkly beautiful mirage of possibility and ARRIVAL we have made this goal out to be, and in some ways, it surely is these things.
And how do I feel? Excited? Hopeful? Certain? Scared? Well, after all this waiting, which has taken a couple of years of time now, I guess not so much of any of the above. This decision doesn't hold the desperation for me that it once did. I will not be crushed any more if the answer is "NO". I have learned so much...God has brought me on such an amazing and incredible journey not just in miles to a physical place far from home and family, but in my heart, He has used some brutal circumstances to rip me from my comfort zone but then to so tenderly and gently carry me to a place of total surrender to His Will.
I guess that is what I see in this place now- what once was ugly and unfamiliar is now beautiful and home, because everywhere I look I see a lesson learned, a stubborn will broken down, a hardened heart softened. And in every blade of grass, every snow storm, every big oil truck that throws rocks on my windshield, I hear His gentle but never moving voice reminding me, "I brought you here to do a thing in your heart, in your life, in your family. Trust me. I may call you to leave next week, or I may call you to stay forever. Either way, I am here with you, and this is My plan. Trust Me. I love you." And I finally do. I really do trust Him. And no matter where we end up, this place will always hold a special beauty for me.
Staci Renee
4/15/2014
