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The Continual Search for Joy...and My Inability to Find It

Sixteen months now.  We've been living in Michigan now for sixteen months.  We sold our house five months ago.

It has been such a relief to be where we are.  I seriously love where we live.

I love that John and I always have so much to do.  There is always some athletic event to watch, or some cider mill to visit on a Saturday morning, or some restaurant we want to try, or some concert to attend.  We never have a lack of things to do which is nice since we don't have the kids around anymore.

I also love the Border 2 Border trail that I walk every day.  Five to seven miles of a paved trail through woods and fields.  In all the years we lived in PA, I never found a path that I could walk outside comfortably, so the treadmills at Planet Fitness and the Nittany Mall became my daily walking routes.  I love heading outdoors with very few people around, seeing different animal friends along the way, and listening to my scriptures.  It's been an easy habit to develop.

I love working in the temple.  Our Thursday night shift is the highlight of my week.  No matter how tired we are when we show up, and no matter the rush hour traffic to get there, once we walk through those doors and see our temple friends, the cares of life just melt away.

I love having a demanding calling.  Working with the Young Women takes so much time, but what a difference from having nothing much to do with the church in PA!

One of the very best parts though of our move?  For the first time in a long time, I have friends again. Good, quality friends.  Friends who call me up just to talk to me (I'm still getting used to the idea that there doesn't need to be a reason for them to be calling).  Friends who want to go for a walk with me outside.  Friends who invite me to their parties, and who take me out to lunch.  And texts.  So many texts.  I've been so lonely for so long and have tried to tell myself that no friends really matter except John and my kids, but man it's nice to have girl friends again.

There are some things that we don't enjoy as much in Michigan as we did in PA:  I miss my doctors, and my hairstylist, and my cleaning lady, and we miss paved roads and good Wifi, but no place can be perfect.

There was so much that went into the decision to move, and as scary as it was to pick up and leave, especially at our ages, we trusted that what we were doing was right.

The hardest part of our move (besides still not knowing what to do with all of the furniture we own in a house that is too small for us) has been John transitioning to a new job.  Having been a practicing physician for almost twenty years now, it's challenging to leave an established practice and an established way of doing things and start over.

He is employed by IHA, a group of about 400 physicians.  He was recruited hard by them because of his experience and in all honesty, his money-making abilities.  In his practice in PA, he was always one of the top money earners.  Yes, medicine shouldn't be about money, but in the end, being a physician is a job and money is involved.  This physicians group needs hospitals and facilities naturally in which their physicians can work.  IHA had no gynecologist at a small hospital in Chelsea (yes, the same town where my mother sees patients), so they wanted John to work there.  The hospital vetted John as well and saw him as a good prospect.  They agreed to front his salary for two years while he built his practice, and after that, he could go on production.  Although John was nervous in the beginning about not doing enough surgery to produce enough money for us, it soon became clear that he would be able to go on production early because his numbers were over the top.  For us, attempting to recover from the financial losses of the last few years, this appeared to be the greatest blessing.  We could take all the extra production money, pay off our large debts and save even more for retirement.  Production was to start this month, or at the latest, January.

A major problem though (and probably one of the only ones we've had since moving) is that "small hospital in Chelsea".  Turns out, small hospitals don't like to change things.  They don't like modern ways of operation.  They don't hire new people with fresh ideas and open minds....and they don't like new doctors either.

John has been fighting the hospital from day one.  They didn't want to provide him with the instruments he has been using in surgery for the past twenty years but insisted that he operate with what they thought is best.  They refused to call him when his patient was prepped, but instead insisted that he sit in a cubicle, waiting for a light to come on to tell him the OR is ready.  Nobody made any formal arrangement for call coverage for him, so when he went out of town, he had to just "find someone"...in a place where he knows no one.

All of this is separate from his actual practice.  IHA sends out random surveys (called Press-Gainey surveys), and his scores have been excellent, especially considering his sample size is so small.  4.8 out of 5.0.  His office staff thinks he is terrific, and they all work really well with him.

And most importantly, his patients have done really well.  In the past year, he's performed over 500 surgeries, and while there have been the normal percentage of small complications, everything has resolved, and his patients like him.  They bring him things like buckets of fudge ;-)

You would think that God is giving us a reprieve from the hell that was our lives before, right?  It feels like God is saying, "You did the right thing moving.  I know it was hard, but you trusted in inspiration, and I'm showing you that I'm walking with you on this journey." Yep, I should have known that it couldn't last for long when about a month ago, while out walking, I was thanking Heavenly Father for this little break.  I wanted him to know the immense gratitude I felt for being given such a happy time in our lives.

But in the same way that every time I think to myself, "Hmmm, I haven't been sick in a while," and I come down with the flu the next day, I should know that when I recognize that life is good, it's probably going to take a downward turn soon.

To make a very long story short-er, John's privileges at Chelsea hospital were permanently revoked this week, and he can no longer practice there.  It is a very personal attack on him and his abilities, and there's absolutely no proof to back up what is happening.  John's patients are happy and healthy, and there have been no law suits of any kind.  Somebody, somewhere doesn't like him, and it's a witch hunt.

Needless to say, this news has ruined our diving vacation in Grand Cayman (and of course this is the only vacation we've taken this year because we don't have money to travel).  It's hard to wrap our heads around his career being ruined with a short investigation and a letter.  But in a turn of events, John reached out to his old job in Altoona and asked if they would take him back....and they are interested.

So with all that we love about Michigan, it looks like we will be leaving and heading back to PA if this works out.  In fact, in the text that Dr. Lee sent to John this morning, he wrote, “If you are serious, I think there is both interest and opportunity for you here.  The four of us will meet soon to discuss it more.  Many of your old patients ask about you and think highly of you still.”

Who knows how things will play out over the next six months when John's contract in Michigan officially ends?  We may, by some miracle, end up staying, but I doubt it.  But don't think I'm not incredibly sad to leave.  All of those good things that I listed in the beginning will be gone again, but I can't imagine going back to a situation where I don't have friends again.  I envisioned spending many happy years with the friends that I have now, and I never thought that I would need to see so many of the people who treated me so poorly for so long.  I will be blacklisted in our old stake, seeing as two of the three people in the stake presidency hated me.

It's tough not to doubt the inspiration to come to Michigan.  We felt like it was the right move for us in so many aspects--starting a new chapter of our lives without kids, attempting to fix broken relationships with our parents, getting new opportunities to serve in the church.  Why would God have us go through all of this for such poor results?

I can't go down that rabbit hole again.  I can't mix God into the confusion of our lives. I need to trust that, like Job, I can say "I know that my Redeemer lives" at the end of all of this.  We have so many items in the "good" column of our lives that it makes sense to anticipate the "bad" as well.  As I told Ethan and Rebecca today, I guess ENDURANCE is the current lesson in the Kennedy lives.

I'm hoping that God will provide.  That he will give me the chance to feel really happy in Pennsylvania.  That I can find things to do, and friends to make, and callings to serve in.  But if not, we don't have to stay there forever.  We just need to build up John's confidence again, make some money, retire, and then move on.

I seriously wonder if I will ever find that lasting joy while on earth?

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