So I moved and I really love it.  I haven't been there long and I've had people over the whole time, but I have great plans for my alone time.  The best part of it all is that I have no internet and no television, so my life is going to be quiet and my mind uncluttered and it will be so good for me.  I'm off a busy street and the traffic noise reminds me of the lake noise that I miss badly.  The building is old, crumbling brick and the floors creak and it all just suits me. 

My parents are champs, they found me furniture and moved me and filled my fridge and cleaning cabinet.  Then my friends came with baby E and organized my whole closet for me.  A small miracle.  That night we ate take-out on my floor and played in the packing boxes.  I read myself to sleep and woke to my favorite day, Sunday.

I went to church where a professor from my undergrad pastors and we all chatted for a while after.  He called and left a message later that day, asking me to ring him back and that he had a quick question for me.  He had told me that sometimes he is concerned for me and I had joked back that I was too.  His call was about his concern and he asked some hard questions.

I gave him hard answers.  I'm not sure why, but I've always felt things deeply, and not the typical things.  I'm not falling in love all of the time or finding drama wherever I go.  Usually I'm just watching and listening to the stories I find.  I admitted that sometimes I feel a little lost, that I get confused and unsure of what it is to be in my mid-twenties and about Christ. 

But, I told him.  I have never doubted my belief.  I have been angry with Him.  I have been hurt and indifferent.  But I have always known that He is.  It scares me to think about life without Him.  And even on my worst days, I still feel hope inside of me.  Lately, I've been well.  It just took me a bit longer this time.  I had thought that coming home would be strengthening because I had gotten so tired.  But when I arrived, I realized that there are breaking people everywhere we go, we're all carrying piles of questions and hurts around and so there is not time to take a break from it all, there is not the time I thought there was to rest.

God is faithful and God is good and God knows me more than I know myself.  He made the body so that we could move together and the body is here also.  I am hanging on to that great gift, hanging on tightly because His presence is there.  I am not sure how to not struggle.  Some days I would like to lay down and close my eyes and wait for the world to clean itself, but that is not what He purposed us for.  I think I alarm people at times, because I am lousy at hiding the struggle, but I believe strongly that it is wrong to.  I believe strongly that struggling is life and that it is God's grace that allows me to struggle.

I am tired of life's pretense..  One day everything will be right and good, but this is not that day.  I forget this sometimes and then I miss the struggle, the tension between this world and The Kingdom.  I told him that my favorite thing to do is to find Him because then I find myself.  And lately, I've been noticing Him everywhere.  Lately I've been winning the struggle.

All because of His great grace.