Saturday is my last day at dB. At 5pm I will turn over my keys and I will have one very special thing return to me. My life. The past two months have been incredibly difficult. I don't know how to write about it, and I don't know how to describe it. But its been both slow and quick and hard and blinding, and I have just been confounded by it. It has silenced and kept me sometimes away from investing in people, and it has infused a layer of heaviness and grief that has invaded nearly every aspect of my life. Yes. It's been intense. Leaving my current position will allow that cycle to stop digging in so deeply, and start letting in the light.
However, I have learned that our walks with the Lord while are hopefully continually moving forward, that there are periods when we feel like we are standing in the middle of the road. Not necessarily moving backwards, but not feeling much of a progression either. I am thankful that in the midst of this unmoved pace, that I am met there. That I am not alone. That He is with me, has gone before me, and His love is both paced and accelerated to meet my needs now, to challenge my needs tomorrow, and to simply embrace me as I am.
Tomorrow my sister Krystal and I have a day together. She cutely said, "tomorrow is your last day with me alone, what are you going to do with me?". I sat and I laughed, and said I wasn't sure. Krystal leaves for Charleston, SC to visit Mom for a week, then returns to me for a few days. When she comes back, Kristyn will have returned. After a few minutes I responded to her and I said, "well. Tomorrow is your last day alone with me. What are you going to do with me?" She said something funny about asking me first, and I told her I was older: I win. The banter was familiar, comfortable, intimate, and meaningful. I didn't realize until after I said it and she walked away, how much I was going to miss those moments with her. I am proud of the journey of her summer, and I'm excited that her plans to go home are positive...
However, there is no hiding or pretending behind all of the gratitude, that it hasn't been hard. The Lord has stretched my heart so far outside of my comfort zone that I can only attribute the boldness I have recently found to move to North Carolina to have come in part from what I have learned the past two months with my sister. Relationships are like that. Krystal and I were not close for over a decade. And then right when we were least expecting it, and in the most ridiculous scenario found the roads back to each other. Over a year later I am humbled by this truth.
I have seen often through her eyes the battles and demons that I fight that I am still working and trying to resolve. The unwavering loyalty that I have with some people, that I don't have with others. My sometimes narrow view of situations when I'm unable to see past the ways that I have been hurt. I also recognized a lot of this in myself when I was talking to a friend on the phone a couple of weeks ago. It had been a few weeks since we'd talked or been in touch. In response to a quick three sentence email about something non-emotional, they called me. I am sure it was my fairly generic tone that signaled the need for a phone call. Everything about me did not want to answer the phone call. Every fiber. However, I knew that if I didn't, I would let the missed call go into voicemail and I would never call back. The place that I've been about that, and the place that I struggle in feeling deeply settled into, is just indifference. I have questioned my heart, and I have questioned myself from several different angles about it. Sometimes I feel as though the tough emotional terrain that I've recently resided is whole heartedly to blame. But I think I'm worth the fight, and I think I'm worth more, and in my indifference I realize that it is also sadness and resolve that has made me arrive to a place I don't want to settle.
My most often thought question since May has been, "What do your actions communicate?"
I have asked this to some verbally, and others silently in my heart as I have prayed for wisdom, discernment, hope, guidance, resolve, and peace. I have thought about what my actions have communicated this summer.
When I think about what they've said to my sister, whom I have known her lifetime, but only known her true heart less then 2 years... I think that my silences, laughter, questions, insight have been noted. But mostly I think the way that I instinctively reach out when I stop short in the car to protect her as my passenger has communicated maternal care and attention. I think removing spiders from her room, or in the middle of her path has communicated that her fears are more important then mine. I think opening up my home without questions or push about it, has communicated that with me, there is always a safe place to rest. And those are just the first things to come to mind.
The testimony there is endless. I am humbled, moved, and amazed at the way the Lord has woven each conversation together, and instilled in my heart wisdom and confidence to speak about love, relationships, and forgiveness with maturity and hope. It changed everything. For her. In me. Forever.
My brother has been one of my most favorite people in life. Hands down. I think based on the fact Stan the Man is older, I imagined my brother from my very young little girl day dreaming self that Bill, would give me away at my wedding one day. Recently I have been able to appreciate that my brother will never really give me away, or ever give me up. I saw him last week and his response to NC was that I shouldn't go. Because it would take me further away from him. If he asked me to not take it, I probably would turn it down. Yet. His actions speak to me that my heart, journey, and calling is important and I need to pursue whatever it is, trusting my heart, life, and spirit, and that he is with me in it, for always. I will be honest. The decision to move South has me grieve most, the excitement I had in moving closer to one of my very best and most loyal friends in my life. And that tonight, is hard.
So I'm in this time and space, trying to sort it out. My heart has felt so pulled and called to Richmond that I was honestly thinking I was always going to turn down NC. I wondered, "I have a place to live, a roommate situation, family, a social life in Richmond- but no secured job. In NC I have no one, but I have a job--- why not take the leap of faith and trust that the Lord will provide a job in Richmond?"
Through my stubborn pride and selfish desires (that include a time spent in Africa serving on Mercy Ships with Seth), I finally realized that moving to a place I have only driven through, and not knowing a soul, but being able to financially provide for both my new place and waiting on the house to sell meant being responsible... and that the Lord would bless me there, too. I day dream about taking August off from America and going to Africa. Sometimes the desire to go and buck responsibility leaves me confused; and so I pray for more direction. Because sometimes its not just an idea, and its not an escape- its a true desire and dream that I just don't yet feel has resided into a yes. Maybe its just fear. Not sure. But the best line in the email banter the past couple of days was, "Boo, just get here already." I am not the person to say that to, because I will in fact buy a plane ticket. Yet, I am also thankful that I have matured and am more able to pause before transatlantic flights because I don't run away anymore- I run to, and I really hope that this Spring I am running to something great... a mission of service, a time of sacrifice, something purposeful and meaningful. Like China was last year. He almost has me convinced. Almost. ha.
I hope that my actions show that I'm holding onto the Lord tightly and patiently. That my actions and choices show that always being friends, does not mean always being hurt is right, self respect is important. I pray that my leap of Faith in moving shows that in the midst of my moment, my summer, my heart, my position that, God is real, present, ever and forever loving- and is my mainstay... my due North...
What do your actions communicate?
What is heard in your words that can also be seen and felt in your silent motions?
Do you let your distractions define you, or do you triumph over them?
No comments:
Post a Comment