With the exception of my car, one box and a small antique table left in Fort Collins, all my earthly possessions fit into this shared bedroom space.
After two months in Georgia, my bags are finally unpacked. All my clothes have a place in a dresser, which is conveniently in the same room where I sleep. No longer do I have to traipse through someone else’s bedroom to use my bathroom. My food has migrated to the kitchen, instead of being dispersed to random corners of the house.
I can breathe a sigh of release.
The true mark of my “here-ness”, my “settled-in-ness”, is that I am writing for me again. There’s something about space, about living in a beautiful, cohesive little space that lifts me out of the fog of my brain and allows me to function, to see the story in a line of quickly folded laundry or the bright bloom of a snapdragon in the bouquet my man sent me from D.C.
There is a romance happening here, I think, that in this house with twenty-plus roommates, I have been given the gift of space. Emotional space. Mental space. Physical space. Heart space.
This season has the potential to be even busier than the previous two months. The second CGA class arrives in two weeks and I’ve been asked to help make everyone feel at home. That means that while the most of my class has moved into town, I’ve stayed behind in our current home on the lake. It’s slowly turning into a season of more responsibility in this community, more leadership and more opportunity.
And it’s a season where I have a lot to say YES to, but also, where I am learning to gently, but firmly, say NO.
I am saying NO to taking work home from the office, so that I can keep my home a sacred space for community.
I am saying NO to the pressure to have my entire life figured out, which would rob me of the joy of this season where there is so much yet to learn.
I am saying NO to the outside voices who want to weigh in on my relationships with no real understanding of my heart.
I am saying NO to the temptation that I should be working full time instead of obediently seeking discipleship, as the Lord has asked me to.
And most importantly, I am saying NO to lingering idea that I have to be perfect in order to be loveable.
But YES to settling-in. YES to nights full of cooking and laughter and girl-talk. YES to morning workouts and productive, kingdom-bringing office hours. YES to writing letters and emails that are the full extension of my heart. YES to blogging consistently. YES to long-distance communication and a man who matters. YES to loving every, single minute of this season and not missing anything. YES to looking forward and preparing for the things to come, because those things were promised a long time ago, and they are good and I believe the LORD for them for the first time in my life.
Amen.
