hard.

I move out of this house one week from today. The house looks like a train hit it.

And while I am excited about the move, I must admit I've been served some very intense and hurtful emotional curve balls in the past couple of days. I got off the phone on Friday night and just sort of slid into this very deep, and somewhat dark place. Since then, I've debated the course of action (there is always a course of action for this 'do-er'), and have been reminded that I won't always know where to go instantly.

Yesterday in Church I sat next to Cathy and Lydia, and listened to Essen talk about "Jesus isn't for 'nice people' He is for sinners". He kept talking about how nice we try to be, instead of how broken we are before Christ. The phrase "nice people" struck a chord. A deep nerve.

I think sometimes I agree to things because I think I should, or because I'm trying to love well. However, I have realized in the past couple of days that saying "no more" or "you lied, and intentionally hurt me" are not bad things. I have battled through what forgiveness and reconciliation look like, and where the birth of a renewed friendship comes from.

Two and a half years ago I made a bold, and painful decision to sever communication between myself and someone I had cared about. There were a lot of reasons for it, and we both knew that a major shift was necessary in our friendship. Though, I knew choosing it hurt someone else, and I felt like a failure. It was a long silence. This past March, I made a more bold choice then asking for space- and I broke the silence. Mark returned my call within the afternoon. And we talked for about an hour. It was different, and we spent a little time talking loosely about what had happened between us. I got off the phone and was thankful that in all of the space, and in the 2 year silence that the Lord had done what I needed to happen for that friendship to be healthy. We saw each other this past May for the first time in a long while. I hadn't realized how much I had changed and grew until that dinner. I was thankful for the journey and maturity in Mark as we shared stories, and laughed at life. Our friendship in no way resembles the one that had to die. But it was one that required the decision to end something hurtful, to heal from that, and then when it was time- regardless of how long that time took to come, we could again be in touch.

I am on the brink of a similar choice. And it is tearing my heart open and wide to what the Lord desires for my heart and the way that I am treated. The choices that I make to whom I will be vulnerable before, and who I will trust. It's just a hard, impossible to understand immediately place. Sometimes wanting more, is just really about wanting better.

As I pack up boxes that hold more then "stuff" but artifacts and memories that tell the story of my life, I am silently praying for what gets left here... what I am taking with me- one week from today... I am sensing the confidence to make a choice I've fought against for a really long time... and that is both incredible, and impossibly hard at the same exact time.

In any event.

Piece by piece.

Box by box.

Memory by memory.

This house is on its way to being packed up, and I'm really excited for next week.