Jeff:
David, from our homeroom community asked a really good question. And he said, if you hate the state your family lives in… I don’t think emotionally, but I think he means geographically. Is it okay to move and put roots down in a state you both love? David, really good question. And yes, I… Jeremy, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Here’s the only thing I’ll toss to you, David, or toss to the community. I think all I would say, and all I do in the conversation is usually ask a question back to people or just, or give a provocative thought back to people. And that is we never second guess moving for work, or we at least always know that’s an option, if that makes sense. Like, “Oh, I might get offered a job in a different state,” and we might go, “Everyone always has that as a possible option, usually, in the corporate world, whatever.” And they don’t think moving for a job feels drastic by any means if they need to do it.

But what is interesting is we almost rarely never ask that question for like the best of our family. What’s the best thing for our unit? What’s best thing for our marriage? Maybe it’s moving closer to family. Maybe if there’s toxic layers there, it’s moving away from family for a little bit. Maybe it’s not even about family. It’s about your actual family unit. I don’t know. But I do think yes, asking the question of what is the best thing for your family is a very, very, very helpful question. And I don’t think that you should be confined into geographical lines if you can’t, if you can, I mean, when asking that question, if that makes sense. Or at least it should be at the same level as with the work ability to answer that question. What would you say, Jeremy?

Jeremy:
Yeah. Well, what I’ve seen happen so often when families do move away from maybe parents, siblings, and then they get super intentional about their family. I’ve seen this happen over and over again. It’s really happened to you guys. It Happened to us. And that is that when you, wherever you end up and you start putting roots down and then you begin to create family rhythms, and then you begin to demonstrate honor and invitation to your extended family, it creates what… I don’t know. I just have called it the family vortex. I mean, it’s like people start to move to you wherever you are. And this, of course, is not guaranteed. And for some of you listening to this, you’re like, ‘I don’t want my family to move close to me.’.

Jeff:
Totally.

Jeremy:
And that’s fine too, but it’s because we are so transient in our culture. And because it’s so easy, oftentimes for families to move, that oftentimes when you create a really strong family culture, it’s very attractive to your extended family. And so, but that can take decades to really craft a culture that might attract those family members. And then they come and they move and that can be really healthy. And so we grew up, I grew up in the Seattle area. Today, we live just South of Cincinnati and just about every member of our family has ended up moving here when they were in the midst of transition over the last 20 years. And this has been awesome. But a lot of that has just been created because when they visited, we really try our best to just demonstrate a value for them, a value for family. And so we are putting much stronger roots here and now, but that’s how it worked for us and Jeff, for you and Alyssa, how has this really worked out for you?

Jeff:
Yeah, because we did the exact same thing? I… we love… I think every marriage tends to be served to have a first couple of years of… what’s the word, embryonic or nuclear type stage in the beginning. Now, if you stay, I think what happens traditionally in the Christian tradition specifically, is we stay insular and that’s not healthy. Right. And even in the secular culture, I think it was kind of like the move away and disconnect. So the secular cultures move away, disconnect, don’t even care. And the Christian culture, I think, holds onto the leave and cleave first, a little too strongly for too long. Right.

So I think there’s a little in the middle of, there’s something about building and I like to think of a new family unit, like soil. Right? And like a flower. It’s way more delicate when you first plant it and you have to give it a particular type of care until it becomes a normal thing. Right. Then the wind can come. And I’m not calling the family wind, you know what I mean? But then things that can withstand elements and friction and growth and all these type of things. So yeah, we love it. Or we love having our families close or, I mean, Alyssa’s family close, but I mean, communicatively close with my side of the family, having them visit. We try to get out there and yeah. And I think as long as you’re working towards it, that’s a huge, huge thing. That’s what I would say.