“Welcome to Wilmington, North Carolina, current time is 4:35. We appreciate you flying with us and if Wilmington is your final destination, welcome home.”

The words made me smile. If all went well, Wilmington was going to be my new home.

Fifteen years ago, scratching out a living in a corn desert of Central Illinois, I decided I needed a change. I was single, no kids, and hungry for adventure. What on earth was I doing in this desolate region? A summer trip to Paris inspired me to leave Illinois for literally greener pastures, somewhere with less snow and zero subzero temperatures. My feeling was if I was going to spend the rest of my life alone (as I suck at long term relationships), I wanted to do it in a beautiful place and live life well. I had nightmares about turning 30 in my current location, doing exactly the same things I was doing now at 24.

I saw an ad for a hospital system in Wilmington, North Carolina and narrowed my search there. Wilmington also had city qualities like a local Target, a quaint downtown, and most importantly, an ocean. I applied, got a phone interview (which seemed to go well), and then a call for a face-to-face interview. They were going to fly me to Wilmington, put me up in a hotel, and give me a rental car. I figured if nothing else, this was an adventure.

I asked my mom to come down and I booked her on a parallel flight and hotel room. If I was going to move here, I needed a more experienced set of eyes, since stars were quickly clouding my vision.

It was the middle of December, where temperatures were in the single digits in Illinois, but this tropical paradise boasted 55F. I even brought flip-flops with me, but I quickly regretted that. I couldn’t get over the greenery. My mom was stunned that pansies were still blooming, as everything had turned brown two months ago at home. Winter here was a gentle one that tugged at my soul.

We got lost, as Martin Luther King Drive is really confusing and these were the days before GPS. Tired and hungry, I now cringe at the fact that we stopped at Chili’s on College Road for dinner that night. Wilmington has such amazing eating establishments, this should have been against the law. We made it to the hotel – The Hampton Inn on 17th Street – and settled into our respective hotel rooms for an early night: I had two interviews the next day: one with HR, one with my future boss.

As I was parsing through the Bible that night in bed, James 1:6 stood out to me:

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

James 1:6, NIV

I wasn’t 100% sure what it meant, but the words “who doubts is like a wave of the sea” kept rolling around in my head.

I remember staring out my hotel room window, gazing north on 17th Street and thought, “Yeah, I could do this. I could live here.”

My doubts were quickly fading.