In Christ Alone

WHEN: 7:46p.m. (EDT) July 21, 2010 WHERE: Charleston, SC

In Christ alone will I glory, Though I could pride myself in battles won. For I've been blessed beyond measure, And by His strength alone I overcome. I could stop and count successes, Like diamonds in my hands. But those trophies could not equal, To the Grace by which I stand. In Christ alone, I place my trust, And find my glory in the power of the cross. In every victory, Let it be said of me, My source of strength, My source of hope, Is Christ alone. In Christ alone will I glory, For only by His grace I am redeemed. And only His tender mercy, Could reach beyond my weakness to my need. And now, I seek no greater honor, Than just to know Him more. And to count my gains but loses To the glory of my Lord. In Christ alone, I place my trust, And find my glory in the power of the cross. In every victory, Let it be said of me, My source of strength, My source of hope, Is Christ alone.

It was the spring of 2006. I was a junior-slash-senior in college. My hair was long my thoughts were short. But God was beginning a journey in my life.

I had just declared my major in geography the semester before, after struggling the previous 3 years of college to pick one that suited my interests. Coming upon a major this late in my college career could have become an issue but it allowed me to really discover what I wanted do without the pressures of "figuring out my life" before starting my freshman year of college. The problem was, I really enjoyed what I was doing in school but I felt it was too late to really develop my skills and interests before finding a job. I would be graduating in the fall. What was I going to do? That spring semester I blindly inquired about what grad school entailed with my professors and asked what options I could pursue to better help me find what I really wanted to do with my future career. I had taken a soils class and a rivers class a few semesters prior and these two classes I blame on getting me hooked on what we "folk in the biz" like to call geomorphology. In the broadest context, geomorphology is the study (-ology) of the earth (geo-) changing shape (-morph-). In essence, I like to play with dirt.

On a geomorphology field trip in September 2005.

I know, dirt sounds like a bogus and unbecoming direction to take my career, but watching and studying how sediment moves, on all scales, is the passion God gave me for my career. It started on field trips to the banks of the Cedar River in northeastern Iowa, to digging holes wherever I had permission, and my interst in geomorphology began. Water and dirt - what more could a boy ask for to get paid to play with?

Eventually, to me, the type of water mattered, and this is where God truly redirected (revealed) where my future was headed. Point bars, cut banks, and oxbow lakes in river systems began my interest in geomorphology but I needed more - I was looking for welded sandbars, washover fans, and barrier islands. I needed an ocean. I needed to move. For those who don't know, Iowa is an Indian word meaning, "land between two rivers" - a modern day Mesopotamia of sorts. It may also be translated as "Idiots Out Wandering About", according to abbreviations.com. Iowa has no shortage of rivers, and a fluvial (river) geomorphologist would have more than enough to study and work on in Iowa. But I saw things from the eyes of a coastal geomorphologist and although even Iowa's namesake is based on rivers, it was nowhere near the crashing waves that shape the 95,471 miles of the United States coastline. Any further schooling (or career for that matter) would have to be sought out of state. A couple of my professors who knew of my potential interest in grad school began sending information my way that they came across. There was nothing much, and what there was, was taken with a grain of salt. My commitment to pursuing a Master's degree was still developing and I was not yet ready to jump in. I do remember one opportunity that involved a school on the East Coast called East Carolina University (ECU). I had never heard of the school and the description was intriguing only to the extent that it was on the coast. I held on to that sheet of paper but quickly buried in with the rest of my schoolwork and quickly lost track of it. This was January 2006. Around April 2006, my department (geography) at the University of Northern Iowa was seeking a candidate for the position of department head to begin work in the fall. As a senior (and member of the "Do Whatever It Takes To Get Extra Credit Club"), I felt it necessary to join in on the presentations the candidates gave when they came to visit. One candidate caught my attention, even before I met him, because of that sheet I had received in January. His name - Dr. Patrick Pease. His employer at the time - East Carolina University. I dug deep to find that sheet of paper and prepared myself to find out more about this man when he visited. Dr. Pease came to present, I introduced myself and got to know him during his visit, and he was eventually chosen as the new department head of geography at UNI for the fall semester of 2006 - my last semester before graduation. Due to this new development in our department, getting engaged in August 2006, and the ever-growing pressure of "What do you want to do with your life?", my focus quickly took a serious turn towards investigating grad schools. Stacie and I had multiple meetings with him that fall semester to determine where to start, how to apply, and how to plan. Obviously, ECU was an option we threw around given he had just come from there and he proved an invaluable resource for our pending application to their geography program. We applied to ECU and the University of West Florida in Pensacola, Florida in January and February 2007, respectively. On Valentine's Day 2007, I received a formal letter from ECU and was accepted in to their geography department. I later received an acceptance letter from UWF as well but we had decided to choose ECU (after all, they're the "ECU Pirates" - it was the obvious choice)! In five months (to the day) from receiving the letter from ECU, we had to finish planning our wedding as well as completely uprooting ourselves from the only life we had ever known, in Iowa.

Finally finished with my application to ECU - January 27, 2007. I took this picture at 2:48a.m., hence the face.

Putting the finishing touches on my application to UWF - February 24, 2007.

On July 17, 2007, after driving halfway across the country, we signed our lease and my parents helped Stacie & I move in to our first apartment in Greenville, North Carolina. We had been married for only 6 weeks and had lived with our respective parents our whole lives. We didn't even have a place to live when we rolled in to town the night before. We didn't know anyone there, nor had we ever been to Greenville. What on earth had we gotten ourselves in to? At times we felt we had no answer for that. But God did.

Before leaving for my first day of grad school - August 22, 2007. Why did ECU ever think of accepting this chump?!

Grad school and living away from "home" had its many challenges, but God remained faithful and taught us a lot in the first two years of our marriage - especially a big word called TRUST! We made a lot of memories in those two years, both in Iowa and in North Carolina. And as soon we had gotten "settled" in Greenville, it was time for us to move again. Just this time last year, I was working 12 hour days, 6-7 days a week, strictly on producing a thesis that would complete my degree and award me a coveted Master's degree. Both Stace & I were unemployed, the world economy was a disaster, unemployment was running rampant throughout the country, dozens of unanswered job applications seemed to mock us every day, and we wondered if we would even have enough money to move if we did find a job. "Our plan" at ECU that began 3 years prior seemed to have no clear direction beyond our current situation. On September 4, 2009, we began packing up our entire apartment to move to Fredericksburg, VA to live with my sister and her husband until we could find a job. It's hard and expensive enough to move, but having no job in place and no where to move to is almost unbearable. We felt sick, we struggled to sleep at night, and embarrassment, hopelessness, and doubt were constant guests at our house. Yet even though we often failed to put complete faith in Christ, He cared for us and was just waiting to show us His timing. It can be easy to hear that God never gives us more than we can bear or that His timing is perfect, that is, until your the one with nothing left but to believe those truths. God was just days away from revealing these truths to us in a way we couldn't miss. Five days later - apartment in boxes and our future uncertain as ever - I am clearing out my cubicle at school when I receive a phone call. On the other end was a hiring manager for a job we had applied for the night before. This was the 33rd job we had applied to, just for me! He showed great interest in me and said he had called me before other forward-standing applicants because of my Master's degree. One major condition for choosing a candidate, he said, was that they needed to be able to relocate and begin immediately. Perfect! Our entire apartment was in boxes and we were planning to move in with my sister the next week anyway. He said he would get back with me the following week with his decision. Well, he called me back later that day and offered me the job then and there. We were moving to Virginia Beach! Stace & I spent two days in Virginia Beach the following week, looking for a place to live. Four days later, my sister and her husband were helping us move in to our apartment in Virginia. We had a job!! We knew going in that this job was only temporary since the position was a one-year contract, working at the US Army Corps of Engineers. We were offered the slight possibility that I could find a new position within the contracting company or the Army Corps at the end of the contract but we never put much faith in that. We knew we would likely be moving again in 12 months, to who knows where, but God had provided us a job and a place to live within the span of 10 days; after searching for 3 months. We were content, thankful, and extremely relieved.

Leaving for my first day of work at my first real job - October 5, 2009.

My contract ends September 30, 2010 so Stace & I knew we had to begin the tedious and overwhelming job of polishing resumes, writing cover letters, and searching the four corners of the web for rare job openings again. We dreaded the thought of searching for and applying to 3 dozen jobs like last summer but we had to get started. The jobs were not going to find us by any means. I contacted a former professor from ECU that has a lot of connections and has worked hard in the past to pass along job postings he comes across to his students (including me). One thing he mentioned was to look at NOAA's Coastal Services Center in Charleston, SC. He stated that they don't always post job openings online and that he has worked on a number of projects with the Center in the past. With a number of professional and ECU connections he had at the Center, that sounded like as good a place as any to start. We sent off our first application (to the Center) on June 30. On July 5, I was contacted by the secretary of a hiring manager at the Center and set up with an phone interview the following day. Already a bite, and on our first application, not our 33rd! I was excited but I knew it was time again to run through the interviewee tutorials and practice my answers for the likely questions they would ask me the next day. The interview the next day, in my opinion, didn't go so well but the manager said he wanted to set me up with a group interview the following day on the phone. This time I would be interviewed by a team of managers and people I would potentially be working with on the project. This would be even more intimidating! The interview went quite well, though, and much better than the first day. I sent off my thank you emails to each of the interviewers and again expressed my interest in the position. Five feet from walking in our front door on my way home from work I got a phone call. They wanted me to come down to Charleston (over 7 hours away) the following week for an in-person interview. At least compared to last summer, things were moving at light speed and it was difficult to grasp what we had gotten in to in two short days. But I agreed and Stace & I traveled down for my interview last Wednesday in Charleston. The interview went very well and I got to meet a lot of staff there. I was amazed at how many people a the Center had gone to school at ECU, done work with professors there, or had some level of connection with the university. One guy, who looked close to 40, was even a former student of my thesis adviser at ECU while another guy in his office had worked closely with my other professor that had recommended I apply for this job. I felt like I already knew these people. I left the interview feeling very confident but still with no answer on their decision beyond, "We'll decide by early next week". Stace & I jumped back on the road immediately after the interview and headed 7 hours north on the road we had just traveled 7 hours south on the day before. The trip was taxing but we remained positive. Hours past Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week with no correspondence from anyone at the Center. That awful, familiar feeling from last summer began creeping up on us every night we fell asleep with no answer. Wondering. Waiting. Restless. At 7:30p.m. yesterday evening I noticed a missed call from a few minutes earlier. I recognized it was a Honolulu area code (since my sister used to live there) and I knew that there was a Coastal Services Center satellite office in Honolulu. Before I listened to the voice mail I joked with Stacie that it was the office in Honolulu contacting me about the position and the 5-hour time difference was why they called so late in the day. Well, my joke turned out to be reality and the manager who interviewed me was the one who left the message, contacting me while he was at the Honolulu office this week doing work. After asking me what my position on the job was and me essentially begging for it, he offered me the job at 7:46p.m. July 21, 2010. Stace, meanwhile, was buried in our bed out of pure anxiety of what that phone call could mean. To say I was excited to share the news with her was quite an understatement. We were out of control with excitment and relief! God had blessed again with a job and again His timing, though seemingly opposite from last summer, was perfect.

My career is not my identity, my hope, or my security and God has shown me that in these few short years. Nevertheless, He has blessed us with this job and this next step in our lives. I know He has already has a church, home, and friends for us in Charleston and that there will be new challenges and new blessings. I don't try to justify or explain life simply through a job nor do I pretend to know God's plan, but I do know that this is where He has called us for this season in our lives and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. He began this journey with a single sheet of paper during that semester 4 1/2 years ago. Four years ago I wasn't even sure what I wanted my career to look like and now God has brought me to the pinnacle employer in my field of work. Whether I knew then or not if I wanted to attend ECU, I don't guess that I would ever have thought we would be where we are now, where we're going, and what we've been through. We're not part of the military or clergy yet in the first 3 years of our marriage we have lived in 4 states!! You do the math. It's been a journey full of memories Stacie & I will cherish for the rest of our lives and one full of experiences that we can only point to God for the credit.

The piece of paper that started it all - January 25, 2006. The source of this email was my future adviser (Dr. Paul Gares) and the project description would become my graduate assistantship.

In this newest chapter of our lives I hope not to forget what God has done for us and never lose sight of His continually changing plan for our lives. I was just as ready to write this blog in the situation that we were not offered the job, yet the message would have been the same. Either way, Christ will receive the glory. I pray that in this victory it will be said of me, "my source of strength, my source of hope, is Christ alone".