the post that got lost in the move

Our apartment is a corn maize. Boxes are stacked high, like rows of corn planted one on top of each other. Almost every inch of our 700 square feet is covered in bubble wrap, packing paper, boxes, piles, dust balls, stacks, and to-do’s. I wish it wasn’t a familiar site but it is. Me and moving, we’re tight like old friends. 

In 2013, I moved from Athens to Charlottesville. 

In 2015 I moved from Charlottesville to Nashville.

In 2016 we moved from Nashville to Franklin.

In 2017 we moved from Nashville to Birmingham. 

And during the first week of 2018, we will be moving from Birmingham back to Nashville. 

Since graduating college, I’ve called six different apartments or houses “home”. It feels like as soon as my physical space starts to feel worn-in and familiar, it becomes once again unfamiliar and chaotic. The moving boxes and bubble wrap reappear. My mind becomes as cluttered as my space.

When we moved to Birmingham, we were fairly confident that it was our planting place. Until about a month ago when God caught us completely off guard. We felt him drawing us back to Nashville. If I had to put a relationship status on Nashville, it would most definitely be— “it’s complicated”. 

Almost three years ago, I— partially— blamed Nashville for being the thief that stole my Charlottesville dream. I also felt gratitude towards Nashville because it is—partially— where I fell in love and where Coy was living at the time. Moving to Nashville got me halfway closer to my family in Atlanta, all the way closer to my now spouse, and it gave me my first big-girl job. So, hooray! But moving to Nashville was really difficult because I was grieving Charlottesville and everything was changing and I felt truly lost, a stark contrast to the two previous years in cville. I was drowning in my work, overwhelmed, and exhausted (and also trying to plan a wedding). After the wedding, we moved to Franklin to escape the frantic nature of the city life, but I still worked in East Nashville and my commute had become horrific. About halfway into the school year, we knew the move to Birmingham was on our horizon, giving us a 7-month excuse of being anti-social work-a-holics. 

When we moved to Birmingham, we were ready to make friends and dive into community. We were going to break out of our shell and meet people, join a church, invest in a small group, and actually do things on the weeknights outside of working late and washing dishes and becoming hermit crabs. We had high hopes, big aspirations and optimistic expectations. 

This fall, the reality of our lives were messy, unkept, and frusterating. What we had expected for our careers was not our reality. What we had expected in a community was not our reality. What we had expected in our day-to-day routine was not our reality. The “cute little apartment” ideal that I had envisioned finally having was not our reality. And here we are, among boxes and bins, preparing to a move back to Nashville, which was most definitely, not what we had envisioned being any ounce of a reality. 

I’ve caught myself angry, bitter and hardened. 

I’ve caught myself shouting to the Lord, “This isn’t what I asked for or wanted or envisioned. This is hard and confusing and uncomfortable and I just don’t like it.” 

I’ve caught myself wholly undone, frazzled, anxious, and scared. Attacked. Deceived, believing sometimes that if I had somehow figured out a way to still be in Charlottesville that my joy would be complete again. It often feels easy to believe. 

It’s easy for me to conclude that if my circumstances were different or better then my joy would be complete. I might feel satisfied entirely. But the depths of me know that such thinking is a whole bunch of cracker-jacks. I’m not really desperate for different circumstances. I’m desperate for consolation, stability and safety. I’m desperate for Jesus. I’m desperate for His Word. Because His Word is always what is true— if I could just sit still long enough to let it cover me. 

Ann Voskamp says, 

"It is all that Jesus used to survive in the desert, in his wrangle with the silver-tongued Lucifer, only this, “it is written.” And its the word of God that turns the rocks in the mouth to loaves on the tongue. That makes the eyes see, the body filled with light.”

Sometimes reading the Word of God feels like chugging a big glass of water with the grape flavored EmergenC pack in it when I’m sick— I know that I need it, but I don’t really want it because it’s disgusting. What I really want is to feel better— to get to the destination or find a solution. But I don’t want to endure the road that will take me there— the journey. I want a quick fix and to be honest, running to the Word doesn’t always feel like a fast fix. Rarely does it immediately make me feel better or dissolve my doubt. 

But— alas— I know in my gut and my soul and in my toes that what I desperately need is the Word. I need it to nourish me and awake me back to life. I need it to shelter me from a meteor shower of lies. I need it to dwell in me and change my attitude. I need it to calm me down when I get all frazzled and frantic. I need it to remind me of my identity as beloved. I need it to make my eyes see and fill my body with light.

There have been seasons of life where I’ve approached my Bible like I approach the Whole Foods hot bar or a Jenni's Ice Cream shop— eager, giddy even, with anticipation that what I will taste will be good. This has not been one of those seasons. But the thing about seasons is that they change. Leaves wither and branches rest, for bright greens will reappear come spring. 

Every time I open the delicate pages of His Word I remember that these Words, these are my fighting words. These are my prayers, spoken and unspoken. These words, these promises, these will be what turns the cynicism into faith, the scarcity into gratitude, the not-enough into completely enough and overly abundant. And while I may not always approach the Word with overwhelming ambition, I can always approach the Word with expectancy, asking God to deepen my desire for Him and lessen my desire for lesser loves. 

It does not always happen immediately, but nor does the changing of seasons. Nor does the changing of us to be like Him. 

O Word of God incarnate,
O Wisdom from on high,
O Truth, unchanged, unchanging,
O Light of our dark sky!
We praise Thee for the radiance
that from the hallowed page,
a lantern to our footsteps,
shines on from age to age.
William Walsham How (1867)