Our Move to California – 5 Years Later

Happy New Year, Y’all!

I love this time of year because we all seem to enter into a season to pause, pray to seek God’s direction for 2025 and the years to come, and to reflect on the year(s) before. As I reflect on years past, I can’t help but feel thankful and content that we live in California. This decision to move to California came after much prayer. Are you thinking of making a big move? I’m sharing our story about moving to California and reflections on that decision five years later.

I think back to August 2018.

I was slated to begin working for a federal judge in a clerkship, but hadn’t started yet. I was at home doing the dishes when I heard the Lord say “Riverside” out of nowhere. It sounded so clear, almost as if someone was standing next to me and said it. I had no idea what Riverside was, so I googled it and saw that it was the name of at least three cities in the US. Hearing “Riverside” so clearly stuck with me, so I told my husband about it late at night. In his drowsiness, he asked me to see if there were any federal judges in any of these “Riversides” (because I was thinking about pursuing another clerkship). I searched federal courthouses, and one city had one —  Riverside, California. I stared at my phone screen, feeling a tug on my heart that God’s hand was on this.

As the rest of 2018 went on, I felt as if the Lord kept bringing up Riverside, California repeatedly.

Riverside would pop up in random places, such as the name of a nail salon or a shopping plaza, all the way in Louisiana at that. Nearly every car that passed me on the highway during this time had California license plates. And several semi-trucks driving on the highway were coming to and from California, with some even having “Riverside, California” written on the sides of them. Even Joshua was encountering these phenomena: he would treat patients and ask them where they were from, and they would say, “Oh, California.” I would work on cases, and the counsel came from—you guessed it—California. I began to keep track of these incidents, and over time, there were over 200 incidents in which California and/or Riverside, California, came up. I brought it up to my husband and shared with him that I thought the Lord was calling us to move to Riverside, California. At first, he said no, so I asked him to pray to see what God had to say.

The move to California was one of the topics we prayed about during our 21-day fast in the new year of 2019.

After that fast, my husband came back to me and told me that Riverside, California was confirmed in his heart, too. So we both prayed and asked God to open doors that only He could, and not only three weeks later, the Lord made it clear Joshua to seek a new job in California.

God opened the door—my husband interviewed at a hospital just three months later, and we moved to California in November 2019.

This move stretched us —when we moved here, I had just finished my clerkship and was pregnant. I knew I would need to take time off after having the baby, so I didn’t work the first year of living here. That meant we were living on one income: Joshua’s. And Joshua’s new income was about half the amount of his pay in Louisiana. So we moved to one of the most expensive states with significantly less money, with a new baby on the way. With no family living near and no close friends. It didn’t make sense on paper, but we knew without a doubt that God called us to California.

I am so glad we didn’t let our circumstances dictate our obedience.

With this move, we’ve learned to be better stewards of our finances. God has blessed us to build a brand new home that is far better than we could’ve imagined. He’s brought us to a church where we’ve been able to plant our family, to be known by our leaders, and to establish community.

I met one of my best friends here who has become like a sister to me. We’ve spent holidays together and made beautiful memories with our families.

Joshua and I were blessed with dream jobs that have allowed us to use our gifts—with him at a hospital teaching, seeing patients, and leading Christian spiritual care initiatives and me being an associate attorney at an AmLaw 100 firm and serving on a bar association board in Orange County.

We’ve welcomed three more baby girls these past five years (and had one baby in heaven from a miscarriage), and now we’re a family of six.

Most importantly, my relationship with God has healed substantially, our faith has grown, and our family identity is more firmly established. Our move to California hasn’t been without its struggles, but the blessings far outweigh any momentary challenges.

As I sit here, surrounded by towering palm trees under a crystal-blue sky with mountains in the distance, I feel so blessed to call this place home.

So, where’s God calling you? I hope you follow Him—it is so worth it!