Embracing Uncomfortable

It's midnight and I am back in the United States but not back at home. I say this with some uncertainty as to where my home really is. Matt & I joke that we are homeless. This is not necessarily true in the literal sense as we always have a roof over our heads yet that roof seems to be in a constant evolutionary state.

In our first year of marriage we have called many roofs home for a night, a week, or even a few months at a time. My parents house, our upstairs "apartment", various friend's couches in Tennessee, Matt's parent's house in DC, Matt's room in a house full of guys on Ricky Court and various hotels around the world. This nomadic lifestyle has not occurred because we enjoy living out of a suitcase or didn't have any other options, it's just simply become part of what I consider our transition phase into abundant life. What that life will entail, I truly have no idea. I can honestly say I have no idea what my life will be like a month from now.

And that simple sentence, I have learned, can have catastrophic effects on one's mind, body, and soul. It surely has in my case. I don't deal well with not knowing my future. This is where the growing process starts and where I have to dig out all my insides for some inspection. Learning to make my home not in physical places, in people, in things or in feelings. My home must become the space I make within myself where God dwells. When my longitude or latitude or ability to hold on to people, places, or things changes, my space with God remains my constant. My never changing home.

And if I'm being honest, this makes me extremely uncomfortable. So uncomfortable to the point where I would pretty much rather do anything in the world than this. To the point where I would do anything to get myself out of a situation not of my choosing. I am used to having things my way. And when they aren't going my way I want to kick and scream until the ball is back in my court. I want complete control and I don't want to have to explain why or how or when. I just want life my way.

So as I am talking myself through these times when I feel like my life is not following my very specific compass, I'm trying to figure out ways to put it on the correct course. How can I make my life more in line with the way I think it should be? And if I can't regain control over every decision in my life, how can I harness my emotional response to these things and force myself to be ecstatic about every little weed?

Fast forward through a few weeks of this conversation with myself to last night as I am sitting at the kitchen table with my mother-in-law, Sharon, in Northern Virginia. I've just arrived after 16 hours of traveling from work and we are discussing life and, to be quite honest, it hasn't been a good day. My nomadic lifestyle and lack of knowledge about my future has caught up with me and I'm feeling like I might lose it for the 100th time in a month. And suddenly Sharon mentions her own life and her plans for the upcoming months and how good it is going to be good for her to have such an uncomfortable year. It's like tunnel vision only with my ears and I am sucked out of a hole that I have been swimming in for the past month, even if only for a moment.

I don't have to feel perfect. I don't have to like the fact that my future is unknown to me. I don't have to rejoice in feeling overwhelmed or lonely. I don't have to feel guilty when I struggle with my own wants over what God knows I need. I could have an absolutely horrible year and in the end it's still going to be an amazing year because all of this is in God's plans for me. He knows where I've been and where He's taking me and if it takes being ripped from my convenient and comfortable roots to go on that journey, so be it. As uncomfortable as it may be, so be it.


"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:13