Do you ever close your eyes and see your past few days flash before them? I don't mean in an it's-the-end-of-the-world-and-my-life-is-flashing-before-my-eyes kind of way. I just mean in a my-brain-is-processing-too-much-at-once-and-I-can't-turn-it-off kind of way.
I'm experiencing the second kind.
Hello, my name is Brandy, and I don't do well with change.
I'm not sure when that happened to me. I used to thrive on change. I loved travel, and people, and horizons, and all things new.
Before we moved to Memphis (over four years ago now), my husband and I had moved eight times in our seven years of marriage, and I loved it. Just as I would finish decorating a new place, it would be time to pack up and move to the next. If we ever settled into one place for too long, I would start to paint random walls and rearrange furniture, just to give myself the feeling of being in a new place.
Somewhere in our second year here (during the middle of our Damascus Road Internship) that desire began to shift in me. It was a scary shift. I felt the Lord asking me, "What if?" What if He asked me to stay somewhere 15 or 20 years? What if He planted us somewhere and told us not to move - ever? What if we were not called to pioneer, but to homestead? How would we respond?
Slowly, over time, the shift happened. I can tell you exactly where I was sitting and what I was doing when I heard Him ask, "What if?" But I can't tell you how or when my heart changed.
At the time, I reluctantly replied: "Where you go I will go. And where you stay, I will stay." Although I hoped and prayed it was a "sacrificing Isaac" kind of test.
Now, two years later, I find myself longing for home. Not for a particular city or house, rather for a place to be planted. A house to grow old in. Space for my kids to be kids - outside and free. A garden I can plant in the spring, with confidence that I will still be around for the fall harvest.
I am tired of change. I am tired of the unknown.
...
The past few days have been a flurry of job interviews (for the hubs), house hunts, schedule conflicts, and hard choices. When I close my eyes this evening, all I can see are flashes - like a speeding slide show - of the many decisions we are in the process of making.
I pray and remind the Lord of all the things I want. Space. And roots. And permanency. And peace. Close to friends. With room to breathe. Near my church. But out of the "city." Big enough to grow a family, but small enough that we don't grow apart.
And in that moment I am reminded: my desires are not always His desires. While I do believe that He gives us the desires of our hearts, I also know all too well that my heart can sometimes be wicked and selfish and hardened and small. So rather than worrying so much about what I want, I will seek Him with my whole heart. I'm in the market, with all its trappings. I can choose the cheap trinkets, or I can choose intimacy with Him.
Let tomorrow worry about itself. Tonight, for the last few minutes of my day, I choose intimacy. On earth, as it is in Heaven.
"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world." - C.S. Lewis
1 comment:
Oh, I love you. And this. And the Lord. And that he knows this. And that he loves you.
What is he doing? Where will he move you? I'm just so curious and ready to see the answers materialize for you guys.
This "lamp unto my feet" is less enjoyable to me sometimes than if he would just light the whole doggone path. But in my mind's eye I can see that he's cutting the path one footstep at a time, with all the illumination happening only with each step. Everything on the path behind is bright and easy to see because that part of the path has already been cut and lit. That makes it sort of tempting to look back or stay back or go back.
But you aren't of those who shrink back. This, I know.
Trust the next foothold. Know I'm trusting for it with you and for you.
I sure do love you.
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