Throwback Thursday, not really..But I'm in Austin!

So the whole moving to Austin thing has been slightly different that I ever imagined it'd be.  However, as it all unfolds it makes me even more excited about what God has in store for ole Curtis Henry Hampton Jr. in Austin, Texas.  Unlike many people I know, I've never wanted to live in Austin and even while looking for a job these past several months, Austin wasn't really on the list of places I want to be.  However, when the perfect job opened up here, I didn't struggle with responding to it but I did struggle with loving the idea of Austin.  A lot of those feelings have subsided in the process of actually getting here, even though you'd think the adventure of getting into Austin finally and the adventure of wrecking my car two days in would help affirm why I didn't want to live in Austin.  That's actually not the case at all.  I'm so excited about this that it led me to revive my blog and write about it.

When I was in China 10 years ago, on the bad days or the frustrating days, or the days when I just wanted to give up, I had this amazing assurance that whatever was going on that day in that moment, I was there to be a part of it because God had closed all other doors and eliminated all other opportunities in my life so that I could be right there, right then.  I loved that I had that to lean on every single day of two years overseas.

The way things have come together for this move to Austin and to work with Innovation 360, feels very much the same in terms of this being where I am supposed to be at this moment in time.  The timing of every step of this opportunity is nuts, a doctor in McKinney tells me to get in touch with this guy who started this company called i360 who's doing cool stuff I might like, then not being able to figure out how to get in touch with that guy, then just applying to the only two job postings on their site which were in Austin but I was impressed enough with the position to pull the trigger, then having a super great interview and not hearing back from them as quickly as they said, then a position in Dallas all of sudden being posted on their site which I was way more interested in than Austin but they called and offered me Austin the next day anyway (for the record, I did make my preference known but they wanted me on the Austin team), then the whole timing of i360 projecting to open an office in Austin and when they would begin looking for people to staff that office, and the fact that what these people do is so similar to what I want to do with counseling in terms of treating people holistically, its all just too much to ignore that God's hand as been orchestrating this for some time now (like since he thought to put a Curtis Henry Hampton Jr. on the planet).

I started looking for a counseling job in February of 2015 and didn't even get legitimate interviews until September.  I was waiting and searching just long enough for Innovation 360 to get ready to bring me on staff with them and begin the next chapter for both of us.  The assurance of God's sovereign orchestration has carried me through all of the preparation that has gone into this move, from leaving the credit union, to leaving friends in Wichita Falls, to being able to find a place I could afford in Austin, and on and on right up to being in an accident my second day here and now having to figure out what I want to do about a car.  In a grateful and peaceful way, I feel like I have no right to get anxious about any of this because the Lord has totally got this.  I don't know how He's got it but He has proven that He does and all He requires of me is to trust Him with the details.  So that's what I'm doing.  Our i360 Austin office doesn't open until the end of this month so I'm just here in town hanging out getting acclimated and trying to make some money until clients start rolling in.  The easy thing I thought would be an income generator with Uber didn't really work out since you kinda need a car to shuttle people around. It was fun for the 27 hours that little job lasted. I'm not sure if that's something I should try again once I'm mobile again. I don't think I need to be idle for the next few weeks but in whatever direction I go, I'm going knowing that I'm not freaking out.  The Lord knows what my life is going to look like in the next 2, 3, 6 months and what I'll be involved in and who I'll be engaging.  So I'm going to chill and try to enjoy this time.  Hopefully I'll get to take advantage of this transition period and see my family soon and catch up with some old friends.  We'll see. I'm done with this post.