hearing the call to LA
Dear Friends,
Everyone has a lot of questions, and to be honest, so do we. This ride with God is not for the faint of heart - or maybe it is. Because through this adventure, I’ve found I have the weakest heart of anyone, and yet He still uses me, speaks to me, loves me.
So… Here's our story, to hopefully give encouragement to my other faint of heart friends.
The Call: 2018
The call to LA started in 2018. We were newly married, and our hope was contagious. We were on fire for the Lord and so excited to see how our new life would look! I received a dream so detailed and vivid that I knew it had to be from God. To this day, I’m still unraveling pieces of this dream. Part of the dream was a call from the Lord to travel to LA. Terrified of a new change with new people and moving away from the people I held dear, I pushed the dream to the side, saving it for “later.” I had so many people I wanted to pour into, and so much more to learn from people in Tazewell. I didn’t feel ready or equipped.
The Confirmations
Months later, a close friend confirmed the word. Adding that Jake would be an actor in LA. This confirmed many desires for Jake and I both. We were terrified, excited, and on the lookout for God to move us. Patiently we prayed, learned, and waited on the Lord. The timing just never felt “right.”
Jake first felt an ache for LA in 2023. It was an urgency that wouldn’t leave him alone. Before, we would daydream and talk about LA, but neither of us seemed in a hurry to leave our home, friends, and family. I had prayed for several people we were close to to be in different, better places before we left, not wanting to abandon the people God had entrusted us with. When Jake told me his urgency for LA, I was concerned and worried for the people we were trying to love well at that time. How could I leave them?
Around that time, Transformation Church announced their mission trip to LA so Jake applied, thinking he would not be picked out of the 3,000 or so candidates applying. To both of our surprise, he was! We started fundraising the $1,000 for him to go, and as the Lord has always done for us, it was provided from an unexpected donor. Years ago, we had gifted our sweet friend $1,000 for her own trip to California. Right before Jake’s trip and without knowing our need, she gifted us $1,000 - the exact amount needed. It was a full circle moment for all of us, and God’s promise to me that the Kingdom’s bank is the safest bank to invest in.
After Jake returned from LA, his desire to move was even stronger. He said he had never felt so at home in a place he’d never been. If it wasn’t for my fear of the unknown, he would have booked a plane ticket back the same day. Although I admired his faith in the Lord, and his love for God’s people in LA, I could not get past my fear.
I was so afraid, I hadn’t even prayed and asked for my own confirmation from the Lord! I’m ashamed to admit it, but being totally unedited, I used my refusal to pray as an excuse to “not have confirmation” from the Lord. If I had confirmation, I would have to go, and I didn’t want to. Leave my family, my friends, my safe little Appalachian town? No, thank you. I prefer my little town that never changes, I know exactly what to expect, what to do, who to be. But I love my husband, and seeing Jake’s discouragement moved me to pray through my fear of what God would say. The Lord responded to my prayer seeking His will:
“Don’t you want to go on an adventure with me?”
No, Lord, I’m good here.
“You can stay if you’d like. I’ll be traveling to LA soon though. You can come with me, or stay without me.”
Oh God, I’m scared to go, but I’m terrified to be here without you.
“That’s fine. Do it scared.”
The Preparation
After that conversation, my mind was pretty well made up. I had to go, scared or not. How can I live without Jesus to talk to? Pretty quickly after the confirmation, God told me to stop buying furniture and declutter the house. Things needed to be prepared for a quick exit. We had heard from a close friend that once things started to happen they would “happen so quickly our heads would spin.”
I had delayed telling my close friends and family out of sheer desperation to stay. I don’t think I could fully process the idea that we were actually leaving my sleepy little town. God encouraged me to tell family and close friends and to be firm in my decision. While I did tell my close friends and family, I was not very firm in my decision. I was tossed about like an ocean wave, always back and forth. I would sway from worry to joy, fear to excitement within seconds. I couldn’t be sure of anything ever and it made hearing from the Lord that much more difficult. How could I know His voice when my heart wasn’t aligned with His at all? This is where I stumbled into a season that my Mother-in-Love calls the “Dark Night of the Soul”. I was still praying, reading, hearing from the Lord but His presence felt so far. His voice felt distant. Where I had previously felt He was next to me, in this season, I felt like we were only texting. That’s truly how it felt like, little blips of words from the Lord with no real feeling behind them.
Greenlight
One day, I remember looking for AirBnB’s in the LA area. I was looking in August because that was the furthest it would let me book. I heard the Lord distinctly say, “You’re looking in the wrong month. It’ll be sooner than that.” Later on that day, my dear friend Sydnei texted me and asked if I had something to tell her. Completely confused, I asked her why, and she said she just had a feeling we’d be moving this summer. With no concrete plans to move, I held that in my heart for a long while, just letting the idea rest.
I had felt the Lord pressing the scripture Matthew 18:19-20:
“Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”
When in transition or disagreements, Jake and I try to over-communicate. We communicate more than we think we need to. We try to say anything and everything that we are thinking, doing, feeling so that we both know where the other stands. During what felt like a long time of back and forth, we finally came to an agreement. If Jake’s boss tells him it’s okay to take the month of July off, then we will go to LA for a month, just to see what would happen. That night as we prayed, I had a vision of an angel laying a sword down between us and we both felt emboldened, a new found strength and hope for the future.
After Jake’s boss gave us the greenlight to go to LA for a month, things started to happen quickly. Thankfully, I had already decluttered and organized my house so packing wasn’t the worst. We’ve relied on the generosity, support, and kindness of our family and closest friends. We have been truly blessed with the most supportive people I’ve ever known. They truly embody what it means to love your neighbor as yourself, and have loved us to a degree that I can’t truly put into words this side of heaven.
So what’s happening now?
With God speaking to our hearts and our incredible support system within the Kingdom of believers, we’ve decided to stay in LA for an unknown amount of time. Unknown is a great word for where we are currently. We don’t know a lot yet. We aren’t exactly sure what our life will look like here or how long we’ll stay, and yes, that is terrifying! But I think it may be our only option.
Since moving here, we’ve noticed that LA is a city on fire in more ways than one. People are on fire here! They are passionate, desperate, hard working, and many of them are lost. There are so very many people aching to be known and loved and seen, and the best person to see them is Jesus. Jake has been actively working in the film industry and has already been able to have conversations on every set he’s been to about Christ. I have been able to meet with other moms who are desperate to know more about Jesus. LA is hungry. People are hungry for a genuine relationship. There are so many people just looking to benefit from one another and not genuinely connect. LA is a place where service means money, and not sacrifice. As of today, it feels so far from its namesake - the City of Angels; but slowly, we’re connecting with other like minded people. The people we’ve come to call friends love Jesus and want to serve as a living sacrifice in order to showcase Christ’s sacrificial love to the LA area.
This is all we know and how we are living - we are following the still, small voice of Jesus. Even when my fear is so very loud (and it often is - here especially), Jesus’s voice can pierce through it if I listen for Him. I can hear Him cut through the loud screams that tell me:
“This is stupid! You’re stupid!”
“You will never be enough! You will never do enough.”
“Why would God call YOU to an industry you haven’t worked in in years?”
“What makes you think you’re equipped for any of this?”
“Why don’t you just go back home where it’s safe?”
He cuts through all that noise with one simple question, one that I’ve pondered ever since I heard Helen Roseveare ask it.
Jesus asks me:
“Am I worthy?”
Yes, Jesus. You are worthy of everything I have. You are worth more than the furniture we have to sell. You are worth more than the clothes I left behind. You are worth more than the money we lost. You are worth more than my fear. You are worth more than my love of a small town. You are worth more than my homesickness. You are worth more than my anxiety.
You are worthy of everything I am and everything I do.
Not because of what you do for me - simply because of who You are.
And that is so beautiful to write, and yet so difficult to live out. As I write the words I want so badly for them to line up perfectly with my heart, and maybe one day they will. Maybe the more I live out that idea that He is above everything in my heart, the more it will become true. Faith in action.
So now I wait. We wait. Together. One mind, one body, one accord. I’ll keep you posted.
Your friend,
Zoë