Originally posted on Substack on May 22, 2026

It all started with an email.

As each new summer rolls around, I often look back at the summer of 2015 and recall how it turned my life upside down. A season of adventure – both expected and unexpected. I knew going in that I had a vacation planned with a friend to do some hiking and exploring in Colorado. That alone felt pretty adventurous to me. I didn’t travel much and when I did, I rarely left the southeast. If you had told me even in the beginning of that summer that by the end of it I would be living in another city, working another job, carving out a new life in a place where I knew no one, I would have laughed and called you insane. Yet, surprise of surprises, that’s what happened.

I’m a planner. I like to know what’s coming and prepare for it. Yet already in my almost four decades (gasp!) of life on this earth, I’ve learned that we don’t get to plan out our lives. We can try our best, but it doesn’t work. It’s best to entrust our lives in the hands of our Creator and let him lead and guide. He alone sees the big picture and knows what we need for the next step. In my experience, he often only chooses to show us one step at a time.

I didn’t see this next step coming. Yet it proved to be a pivotal one.

It all began one evening in early July. I reflexively reached for my phone and checked my email as I browsed a grocery aisle at Aldi. (Terrible habit. Put the phone down and shop for goodness’ sake! As a journalist, I was connected to my phone and checked it frequently, but that wasn’t the time or place.) I literally stopped walking and stared when I opened an email from a news director in Chattanooga sharing information about a job opening and asking me to share it with anyone I thought might be a good candidate. As I read the description, something in me stirred. “Are you about to move me to Chattanooga, God?!” I thought.

I wasn’t looking for a new job. Moving wasn’t on my radar at all. I worked with an excellent group of journalists at the top-rated television news station in Knoxville, Tenn., which also happens to be my hometown. I had the benefit of great colleagues and being in the same city as my family and friends I’d known for years. I felt like I was happy and thriving where I was. No need to change. I didn’t even have a demo reel of some of my best work. (Poor choice on my part. I should have been keeping up with that as I went along. I regret that now for many reasons.)

I surprised myself by responding to the email and asking a few more questions – on behalf of myself. As I learned more, I felt my interest growing. I decided it couldn’t hurt to apply and see what happened, still feeling pretty confident that nothing would come of it.

I worked quickly to create a demo reel and update my resume over my days off, with a day-long break to hike Mt. LeConte with my youngest brother – one of the summer’s planned adventures. I made the rash decision to “break in” a new pair of hiking boots on the 10-mile roundtrip trek up and down the mountain, so they would be ready for hiking in Colorado. Bad, bad decision. I certainly broke them in, but by the time the hike ended I had the worst ankle blisters of my life. Definitely not my brightest moment.

A few days later, I sent over my resume and demo reel. I received an email the next morning asking for a phone conversation the next day. I agreed. I took the call and by the end of the conversation, the news director told me he had interviewed several candidates already and was almost ready to fill the position. He then asked me if I could come to Chattanooga for an interview the next day. It happened to be my day off, so it worked out conveniently and I agreed. Let the whirlwind begin.

I put on my most professional skirt and jacket, gingerly slid my still-raw ankles into a pair of high heels, and drove almost two hours down the interstate to Chattanooga. I talked with the news director and assistant news director, of course, but also met with some of the lead anchors, producers, and reporters. Interviewing for this type of position is a day-long endeavor. I quickly saw that much like the station that already employed me, this newsroom was a special place. If I was going to leave where I was, especially since I wasn’t in a position where I needed to go anywhere, it would have to be to go somewhere else special. At the end of the interview, the news director told me he was ready to make forward in filling the position and I wouldn’t have to wonder for days where things stood. I would hear something very soon and if offered the job, things would start moving fast. I ditched the heels as soon as I got into my car and drove home.

He offered me the job the next day. He hoped I could be there in a few weeks. I pushed for a month. Not only would I need time to give notice at my current station, pack up my life in Knoxville and say goodbye to friends and family, I also had a week-long trip planned to Colorado in the midst of that timeline. He agreed and my world started spinning slightly as I tried to grasp what just happened. I sat on my couch for a moment and just stared, thinking, “Holy cow, I’m moving to Chattanooga. In a month. And going on a cross-country vacation in three weeks. What. In. The. World.”

Then I had to make one of the hardest phone calls of my life and call my current boss, who had no reason to see my departure coming at all, and break the news to her. The whirlwind continued as I began breaking the news to family and friends, Googling apartment options, and trying to figure out what this timeline would look like. I would work for two more weeks at the station, have a couple of days to pack up more intensely, leave for Colorado, spend a week there, and then come back and literally load a U-Haul the next day to leave the following morning for Chattanooga.

By God’s grace, somehow everything that needed to be done got done. I enjoyed a few days exploring Denver with a friend, then we went hiking in Crested Butte and the Rocky Mountains National Park for a few days. I loved it. I would like to go back one day and take my family. (Added bonus, my husband has family in the Denver area.) The planned adventure was every bit as wonderful and exciting as I had anticipated it to be. The unplanned adventure weighed heavily on my mind, but I still enjoyed myself immensely.

So as the summer of 2015 wound to a close, I found myself in a new city, a new job, and trying to make new friends. The surprises weren’t finished though.

I immediately fell in love with the Scenic City (nicknamed such with good reason), which actually isn’t surprising, with more love just around the corner. But first, a big loss. My paternal grandmother (my final living grandparent) died unexpectedly just two weeks after I arrived in Chattanooga. About six weeks later, I met my husband. I’m thankful I heeded the call to come to Chattanooga for many reasons, but the fact that it brought my husband and me together is certainly at the top!

Eleven years later, I still look back at 2015 as one of those years that stands out as a distinct marker on my life’s timeline. So much changed in such a relatively short time that altered my trajectory. Yet another reminder that when God flips the script and starts an unexpected chapter in my story, it’s best to let him have the pen, trust in his sovereign plan, and enjoy the ride.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series “Surprise.”