I know, I know. I dropped a bomb on you and then left ya hanging!

Two weeks ago, I finally looped you in on a really exciting development happening in my life that will most certainly impact S+B: The Firm is moving me to Luxembourg for a 2-year assignment beginning in October 2017.

For those of you that aren’t quite sure (nearly everyone falls into this category!), Luxembourg is a country that is situated between France, Belgium, and Germany.

Some interesting facts about Lux include:

• It is the last remaining Grand Duchy in the world. Think monarchy with a Grand Duke instead of a King or Queen. (For context, Tuscany, Lithuania, Moscow, and Finland were all grand duchies at one point in their history);

• The national languages are French, German, and Luxembourgish (Yes, there is such a thing!);

• The entire country is smaller than the size of Rhode Island and Albuquerque in terms of land mass and population, respectively.

To say that it’ll be different than living in New York City is an understatement.

I am excited.

I am equally terrified.

I feel strongly that God is leading me here for reasons that I don’t fully understand.

As promised in my post two week weeks, I am going to be inviting y’all into this journey and will be leaving it up to God to do whatever He wants to do with it.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

Ever since I was a little girl, I have been in awe of living abroad – specifically in London – and was very much an anglophile. I know most people would say that they are too, but I really was!

In my defense (do I need one?), some of it stemmed from my love of history and heritage. My grandmother was English and her family made their way to the US after the war. Decades later my aunt and uncle moved to London for work and my cousins were born there, which I thought was awesome.

Concurrently, I have been drawn to strong women in history – Eleanor of Aquitaine, Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I, Victoria, Queen Mother, and Elizabeth II – selecting them as the subject of books I read, reports I created, and movies I watched throughout my childhood. It also didn’t hurt that my secret teen obsession was Mary Kate and Ashley and they just so happened to travel to London for Model UN in their movie Winning London.

As an aside, I was quite bummed that the only place I got to go to for Model UN was New Brunswick, NJ. Not that it's a bad place, but I think we can all agree that it's not exactly metropolitan or cool.

Let’s assume that I’ve convinced you that I am as much of a London lover as I originally claimed. You must be wonder how it came about that I am moving Luxembourg instead!

Well, let’s just say: God happened.

Fast forwarding many years, I joined the Firm – selected, in part, because of their global presence and international opportunities – and worked diligently for over two years to develop my eligibly whilst getting my day job done.

With a strong performance and senior support in hand, the next choice to consider was where I was going to go.

Truth be told, if I could go anywhere in the world I was always pretty sure that I wanted to go to Australia.

What about London? I know, I’ll come back to it.

I passed up an opportunity to study abroad there when I transferred schools in college and met a lot of amazing Australians later when I became a Christian. I even met a guy that had transferred to the US from Australia my first week at the Firm and I held onto the contact information for the Australian global assignment program ever since.

However, in the two plus years since joining the firm, there was a big development: both of my sisters moved to Europe. I also realized how homesick I get and how much I like the flexibility to travel and see people.

It was the first redirection of many where I felt like God was saying: Not now. I am calling you to Europe. This season is about family.

Just like that, Australia was out and London became the obvious answer for all of the reasons mentioned above as well as my knowledge of the strong Christian community and the solid Firm presence there. I mean, how much more of a sign was it that the Partner that helped me get my job in New York had just been transferred to London?

Despite talking about London like it was a done deal, I began to feel like I needed to go there in order to confirm that it was the right choice.

So, on the way back from helping my sister move to Switzerland, I caught an 8am flight from Zurich to London, tubed it to HTB, prayer walked around the city, took a nap in Kensington Garden, journaled at Le Pain Quotidian in South Kensington and then headed back to Heathrow for my flight back to New York.

Despite how lovely that day sounds on paper, the trip was weird. I felt tired, invisible, and lonely. It felt like the culmination of every fear of moving abroad that I could have experienced. I will have no friends, no home, no warm interactions. This is the worst-case scenario and it feels pretty miserable.  

In retrospect, I think often times when God is loosening our death grip on something – hello, mine was about fifteen years in the making – it might feel odd at first because we’re in denial about what is really going on.

Unsurprisingly, once I realized that I had opened myself up to His direction and the result wasn’t a resounding yes, it meant that it was a no even if it wasn’t a NO!

That’s how God is in my life. If I don’t feel complete peace, then it’s His gentle way of slowly evolving my thinking.

Any inkling of doubt or uncertainty means that there is a string I need to pull to gain deeper revelation.

In this case, God was giving me the time and space to realize that while London – just like Australia – were not wrong choices, they were not His plans for my life at this point.

Once I was able to come to terms with letting go of something I had been very sure about, it opened me up to the possibilities of what that left me with: the rest of Europe!

With renewed interest in searching for peace in His leading, I began to consider the upside to being on the Continent: cheaper cost of living, washer and dryer in my apartment, having a car, closer proximity and spontaneous travel to visit my sisters!

I started to get excited about the possibilities as I realized that London was a continuation of the expensive and "hard" life I live in New York without all of the things (established community, family close by, etc.) that make it all worth it.

God being God knew that I needed a break from the hustle way before I did and prepared my heart for the realization that I could truly take a repast from it all for a short while and then happily come back to the city in two years ready to subway, hand-wash dishes, and coin-laundry it up again.

With all of that in mind, I began to reach out to my Partner network and inquire about contacts across Europe with an open mind. I was done self-directing this search and committed myself to following the opportunities that presented themselves.

Starting with contacts in Madrid, Dublin, Zurich, Frankfurt, Luxembourg City, and Leeds, one-by-one opportunities were considered and then crossed off.

I’ll never forget how the Lux opportunity was first presented to me. A partner that has been my informal mentor since I started called me randomly in December and asked me what I knew about Luxembourg because he was working with a Partner there to bring one of their consultants to Boston and wanted to know if I wanted to trade with her.

I’d leave in April.

What? Was it really that easy?

I said I didn’t know much aside from it being a study abroad location, but I did think that April was too soon.

He said he’d connect me with the Partner anyways.

Six weeks later, in the middle of jury duty no less, I am on the phone with a Lux partner during my lunch break. The conversation lasted ten minutes at most, but in that short time I felt vaguely interested and yet largely uninvested.

Two weeks after that I began to get excited. In speaking with a second partner, he informs me that they love my resume and think my experience would be a great fit for their business. He also debriefs me on a few selling points: there is company car and Luxembourg City is 2 hours away from Paris, 3 hours from Brussels, and 4 hours from Amsterdam. The Firm is a Center of Excellence for my industry within the Firm and the Firm (and overall country) have large percentages of foreigners so there wasn’t a concern about my inability to speak French, German, or Luxembourgish.

My heart started to tentatively hum maybe.

Another week goes by and I speak with the third Partner in the process. I am feeling rather skeptical that this could be as amazing as the last conversation led me to believe. As a result, I am prepared with the tough questions since moving across the world to a place I’ve never been based on company cars and easy access doesn’t seem wise.

Having done many campus and experienced hire recruiting in the past couple of years, I felt empowered to view this discussion as being for my assessment of them as it was them considering me.

At the end of the day, we were interviewing one another simultaneously.

As such, I asked her to name five current projects she was running and how my experience would fit into them. She told me about various engagements in London, Zurich, Paris, and Germany. She told me about projects primarily based in Luxembourg. She even let me in on a gig they were doing in Azerbaijan.

I was captivated.

Azerbaijan? What the what?!

I also felt peace as she asked me questions and I confidently addressed them.

At the conclusion of the conversation, she said they hoped I would pick them and, in that moment, I knew the choice was mine to make.

My heart began to whisper yes.

An important thing to remember at this juncture is that big decisions like this are never made in a vacuum.

In the midst of these conversations, I am also discussing opportunities with other European contacts while simultaneously working hard on my current engagement in the US.

As I said before, I felt very strongly that I was meant to hold my hands open and consider each assignment independently.

The emails that went unanswered or the calls that were never rescheduled, felt like clear no’s that I was completely okay with.  Same with the paraphrased, but direct you are not fluent in our local language; it’s not gonna happen.

Unfortunately, as I felt increasing interest and peace about the concept of Luxembourg, I felt increasing distress over another opportunity that was similarly moving forward.

Saying no to something for no other reason that this doesn’t feel right and talking to you gives me a stomachache reminded me of several bad dates I’ve been on.

There is really nothing wrong except that it doesn’t feel right, which made me feel unprofessional and unfair.

Eventually, I felt like God was asking me to say no to this other opportunity and honor my gut before I locked in the Lux opportunity.

Taking a leap of faith, I let the other Firm know that I would not be able to accept their offer.

It felt awkward. I was asked to explain myself. I was reminded what it’s like to break up with someone.

I strived to answer humbly, speak honestly, and honor their consideration of me.

And then all there was left was Luxembourg.

God’s choice.