Moving

   

     As this school year is coming to a close, there are a lot of transitions happening.

     For the past two years, I have been very blessed to share a house with an assortment of girls. Our house is about a mile from school, on the drop of off town. There are horses in the yard behind ours and we have a beautiful view of the sunset. Our living room has a high ceiling, and for a while we had a piano. I love quiet Monmouth weekends where I just enjoy the house with my roommates and spend time cleaning and doing homework and relaxing. My roommates have had really sweet dogs, and there's gorgeous country roads nearby that I've enjoyed many a jog on.

     But more than these tangible things, the way this house feels has meant so much to me. I can't think of any other way to say it besides I have been so blessed here since the moment I moved in. Even when we've had some hard situations between us girls, this house has always been a place of peace to me. A place where I'm able to rest, and able to connect, and able to have perspective on what really matters, and again, peace.

    As this year is coming to a close we are all going separate directions and the house is moving on to another group of girls. I have no doubt I will keep in touch with my friends. I haven't thought much about leaving the house, until a few nights ago. I was the last one up, so I was walking around the house turning the lights off and locking the door. There was one of those moments where you are in complete darkness until you walk around a corner and can turn the hall light on. I felt around til I could find it, and in that moment in the darkness, I realized how much I am going to miss this house. I know this house. It is home.

    This summer I will be a nomad moving between cabins at camp, sharing my bunks with groups from little girls to young adults and loving and teaching them. I'm moving in to a townhouse with another group of girls in the Fall, and I know there are great things ahead of us and I can't wait to connect more with them.  I don't know what the future holds for me as far as homes after that. My dad is currently trying to sell my childhood home. My mom is trying to move into a house with room for me that looks lovely and she could have a vegetable garden and some chickens even. My sister and her husband and my little nephew will move into a house in the next few years and they also tell me that where they are I will always have a home. I know I will always have a home in my hometown where my grandma is. My boyfriend's family's house feels like home to me too. So does up on the hill in Florence where family is.

    Sometimes I get so nostalgic and I think "this is the best it is going to be. This is the best home I will have".   Thinking about leaving college, sometimes I think "this is the best community I will ever have. These are the best friends I will ever have. This is the happiest I will ever be". I remember thinking that in high school, and boy was I wrong. Except maybe about a few of the friends who are still some of the best friends I've ever had.

    Regardless of what I've experienced in the past, and what the future looks like, my nostalgic sadness is corrected when I remember where my hope is, and who holds my future in His hands. With God, there is always more. With Him, I will always grow, and things will always be getting better. I might not necessarily have a house as nice, or a community as strong, but I will always be knowing Him more and more. He will show me where He is guiding me, and it is GOOD.

   There is always more with God. Always more to be learned, more to see, more to take joy in. And I don't have to anxiously chase after it, I just have to sit back and listen. Listen to what He wants me to do, and then do it. Trusting that since He's designed it, whether it works or not, whether it's easy or not, it is GOOD.

    And I think that's where my peace has come from in this house, and I think I can take that peace with me wherever I go.