You see I was never impressed with this place. I counted the days till I could get out. This place was not big enough for me. It didn't have enough to do to capture my attention. I got out after my marriage only to end up back here due to some issues with my mental health. Panic and anxiety issues cause huge amounts of stress in your life. I needed to be near family. Once the panic and anxiety was under control and I was functioning like a "normal" adult I was ready to blow this joint again.
But there were problems with being able to do that. We had 3 children in school. My husband had atarted his own company. We needed to stick around till at least the youngest graduated from high school. That was last year (2015). Over the past few years I took every chance j could get to visit all of the "cool" cities. I had a kid living in Charlotte, so it was such a joy to visit her. We had a family in Virginia so I loved going to see them.
Then in the middle of all of this. In the middle of me counting down the days till I could get out something happened. Something I wasn't prepared for. I fell in love with this place. Took me totally by surprise! I mean this is never where I meant to settle. But God opened these doors to work in the community. To get to know the people. To pray over this city. To do ministry in this city.
And now I'm in I'm all in! I know we have struggles. We have problems that need to be fixed. But I don't worry about those things because 1. I know Jesus can fix it all! And 2. We have some amazing community leaders who are working their butts off to make Huntington a great place!
I was sitting downtown the other night while out with my husband. We'd just been to Fat Patty's for dinner. We were stopped at a stoplight and I looked around. My first thought was what a beautiful city we live in! I'm so thankful that God didn't listen to me and let me leave! Let's not sit around and bash our city. Let's roll up our sleeves, dig out heels in and get to work!
