God Is Up to Something in the Nashville Area

I never planned to end up here. It seemed like an obvious no.

And I'm starting to learn that's how many others got here too.

Tennessee, Someday

My wife and I honeymooned in Tennessee back in the '90s. Somewhere on that trip we made one of those young-couple promises: someday, we'll retire here. Someday felt a hundred years off.

Decades later, when retirement stopped being hypothetical, we actually looked. Small beach towns. Small-town Pennsylvania. A few others. We still thought about Tennessee, for sure. Good places, all of them—but none of them landed at that moment.

And the Nashville area? Off the table. Too far from family, nobody we knew, no reason to be there. Zero chance. I didn't give it a second thought. But, we still dreamed about somewhere in Tennessee.

The Move I Didn't See Coming

Then my son and his wife moved to the Nashville area—kind of out of nowhere. No grand reason. They thought it looked like a cool place to live without state income tax.

We visited. We liked it. I still wasn't convinced it was home.

Then, in April 2025, our first grandchild was born. I was sitting in the hospital, holding that baby girl, and I turned to my wife and said, "It's time. I can't go back to Maryland and watch this little girl grow up from six hundred miles away."

That was the moment the ground shifted. We found a place to live that same month—then drove back to Maryland and both submitted our retirement paperwork immediately. No hesitating.

"I Put You Here for a Reason"

We made the move from the D.C. suburbs to Spring Hill—and if I'm honest, the first six months I floundered. I wanted to enjoy it, find something fun to do, ease into retirement. I wasn't committed to much of anything.

God had other plans. Almost before I'd settled in, He started hammering one thing into me: This is the place. Now. I put you here for a reason.

Then came the rest of it—the burden to finish the books, the unmistakable call back to men's ministry I thought I'd left behind. I've written elsewhere about that ambush [read that post].

But underneath all of it was this: I was placed here. Called here. And I firmly believe that God used my son to do it—moving him to a place I'd never have chosen, so a baby girl could pull me the rest of the way home. He got me exactly where He wanted me.

I Thought I'd Know No One

One of my biggest hesitations about the Nashville area was simple: we wouldn't know too many people.

Then we got here. A cousin of mine lives in the same town. An old schoolmate is one town south, another one town north. A pastor I served with back in Maryland is forty minutes away. Someone I worked with for years is thirty-five minutes out. One of my closest friends is two and a half hours east.

For a place I was supposed to land alone with my spouse, our son, and daughter-in-law, I sure got dropped into the middle of people that I knew. That's when I started paying attention.

I'm Not the Only One

The more people I meet around here, the more I hear the same story—mine, in different clothes. People who felt clearly, inexplicably called to the Nashville area. No job transfer that fully explains it. Often, unlike me, no family reason that covers it. Just a pull they couldn't argue with, and a quiet certainty they were supposed to be here.

I'm starting to learn. I've heard waaay too many similar stories to write it off as coincidence.

He's Assembling Something

I don't think that's coincidence. It is evident that God is up to something—assembling something—in the Nashville area.

He's gathering people—leaders, workers, men's leaders, prayer leaders, other ministry leaders—into one region, for a reason none of us fully sees yet. Too many of us have the same "how did I even end up here" story for it to be random. It's been powerful to watch. Honestly, a little overwhelming.

I think God moved my son here to wake me up and bring me home to it—for such a time as this.

So Here I Am

My wife and I aren't chasing a strategy. We're trusting and following the God we love, the Creator of all things, one clear step at a time.

If you're a dad anywhere around Spring Hill—if you've got your own version of this story, or you're just ready to be part of what God's building here—I'd love to meet you. See how Ron serves the Spring Hill area →

May His kingdom come.

Flat-Footed Conviction. Wholehearted Grace. Better Dads.

Ron Maxson, Jr. | The Dads Prayer Coach