December's Pittsburgh Visit

So I’ve tried to write this blog for months… I’ve started it many times, but never really finished it. So let’s see if this time will do the charm.

A couple of years ago, probably around 2008 I was just going through a really hard time. Friendships were dropping left and right, I felt like God was taking everything that was dear to me away and I felt like I just wanted nothing else but to RUN AWAY!! To start somewhere fresh, and leave all the pain and hurt behind.

As I talked with one of good friends about this she asked me “where would you run away to?”. After thinking a fewminutes I answered “Pittsburgh” She asked “why” I again answered “Because it’s the one city where I would be by myself but for half of the year I would have something that I really liked that would entertain me.”

Obviously I never ‘ran away’ in 2008, although I did spend a good amount of time researching which neighborhoods were the best and looking at apartments on craiglist.  Yet the idea stayed with me and it resurfaced last fall, so once again I took to craiglist and this time I even started looking at airplane ticket, part of me just wanted to atleast visit one time to see if i even liked the city. 

Well in December we got a bonus at work and guess what I did… I booked a plane ticket to Pittsburgh. I also knew of some friends that lived there that I would have loved to meet up with while and catch up with while I was there. Well Mary and Tuff not only said yeah we would love to meet up they opened the doors to their home and hosted me while I was there. They were such a blessing,  they took me in and really showed me the town.

From the Monongahela Incline

To the Market Place

  Dinner at Jerome Bettis Grill

To the Strip District

To a drive by of the Steelers Training Facility.

The Cemetery ( Hey it’s on Pittsburgh’s TOP 10 places to visit!)

Mount Washington

Steelers Game!!

Some of my favorite from around the city

It was such an amazing trip that well if I had something to describe it by it would be Ephesians 3:20 and I actually wrote the date of the trip next to that verse in my bible. That was big for me, because the closing months of 2010 where very… “gloomy” for me.

So the spark and curiosity birthed in 2008 was ignited even more on that trip, the desire has grown even more. So for the last 5 months my question to God has been “where do you want me?” and I know that there’s BIG possibility that God may have already answered that question for me and that I missed hearing the respond. I’ve honestly become so tired of South Florida, and part of me feels like there’s no future for me here.

Now I have a decision to make stay here in South Florida or move. The move decision has even gotten a bit more complicated, because besides thinking of Pittsburgh I've also thought of Georgia. Which that in itself is a miracle, I never thought I would be consider moving to Atlanta with my dad. Yet after my last visit in April I've really been thinking about it, but I don’t want to step out of God’s will.  That’s my biggest fear, steeping out of God’s will for me, yet at times I feel like I already have.

A Love Story?

Last week as I read over some of the news coming out of Joplin , Mo and the devastating tornados I saw something that really caught my eye. It was the story of a wife and the sacrifice her husband made.

The Weather Channel did an interview with a young woman whose husband of 6-years, a former High School football star, threw himself over her in their bathtub to protect her and them from flying debris as their house was being ripped apart by the tornado.  He suffered a terrible puncture wound from a piece of large debris that went through his back and died shortly after. 

As soon as I read that I thought of Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her” and the scripture came to life. This man loved his wife so much, he put himself in harm’s way to protect her. He took the hit, whatever it took to protect his wife, and it cost him his life. I don’t know what this man’s faith was, if he was a believer or not, but he loved his wife the way that God called him to. I'm sure it will a story that will be retold many times, a story of love, a husband's love for his wife.