Compensation was provided by State Farm via Mode Media. All opinions and statements within this post are my own.
Our recent cross-country trek from Maryland to Utah to deliver our oldest daughter to college has gotten me thinking about a cross-country trek that I took many years ago, when we were very young parents heading away from college and off to our very first job-after-school.
It was a time of transitions – and growing up – and we were nervous.
As a young married couple with our first baby (yes, that same baby who is now a college student herself) leaving our college basement apartment, we didn’t have much in the way of possessions. We thought that we’d load up our little maroon Geo Prism, install a trailer hitch on back, and rent a trailer for the bulk of our things. We had quite a drive ahead of us – similar to the drive in the opposite direction that we just completed last month.
My husband drove our little Geo to have the trailer hitch installed and met someone who gave him some advice – advice that he didn’t appreciate until a few thousand miles later.
This stranger recommended that we change our plans. Instead of installing a hitch and renting a trailer to haul our possessions over mountains and across the country, he recommended that we rent a small moving van and haul our car behind us instead.
He seemed to know what he was talking about (and we admitted that we were total novices when it came to relocating!) so we rented the moving van and set off on our journey to our new life on the East Coast.
Somewhere in the middle of our drive, maybe in Kansas, we passed another young couple on the side of the road. A short while later, we saw that same young family at a rest stop, waiting for hours for their car to be repaired. Their little car was hauling a trailer behind it…and it was not holding up.
We began to see the wisdom of the stranger who had recommended that our little car might not be up to the task of hauling a trailer across the country.
Several days later, after making a few stops along the way, we unloaded that moving van at the home of a family that I had never before met. They took us in and treated us like part of their family while we looked for a job and a place to live.
They fed us, gave us a temporary place to stay, and made us feel at home…and allowed us to gain the confidence that we needed – in a comfortable environment – to get on our own feet.
I’m not sure how we could have made that move and the transition to living so far away from family and school and everything we had known without their support.
Has someone helped you through a rough period or a huge transition? Who was it, and how did they help? Did the help give you the confidence to get past your trials or a transition like it did for us?
Like a good neighbor State Farm is there.Disclosure: Compensation was provided by State Farm via Mode Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of State Farm.
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When we moved to Idaho, people in our local church were kind to us and invite us to do things with them, helping us to adjust to the area.