I'm moving out of my house in Huntington, Indiana today. I've been gradually taking home my personal effects over the last couple of weeks: my Nintendo and bookshelf; then my bed and bed frame; now my desk and the rest, all the little cups of pens and files of bank statements.
And now my room – well, the sunroom attached to the living room that I slept in when it wasn't a hundred degrees inside the house – is completely empty. My things are in the car and I'm sitting on the couch watching an episode of "Supernatural" with zombies in it, writing this blog and waiting for it to feel right to walk out the door and not come back.
You see, over the last year, I've learned a lot about what happens when we try to make plans that are not in line with the Lord's. I tried to get jobs and go directions that I wasn't supposed to go. I thought I had all the answers and I thought I knew what my life was going to look like. I was going to be a cool high school teacher, the one that everyone loves. I was going to write books and go to graduate school and wow my professors with my commitment to academic integrity and penchant for using words like "pwnd" and "legit" in my research papers.
But then I didn't get into Notre Dame. And I didn't get a job. And I had surgery and couldn't walk. And I lived with my parents, an obvious cramp on my independent, brand-new-adult style. And over a long period of several months, I began to learn that it's not really up to me where I go and what I do. I can try to cram my ideas of what my life should look like down everybody's throat, but ultimately, it's not up to me.
And God allowed me to come to Huntington almost five months ago to the day to learn the next lesson about giving him control of everything in our proverbial closets.
And as I clean out my literal closet, I have a feeling of sadness in my gut, a tiny bit of emptiness eating away at me because I know that I want to come back in September of 2012. But because I've already learned that our plans are not the Lord's, I also know that it might not be the Lord's plan for me to do so.
So I'm about to step out the front door, but I can't make myself get up off the couch. Maybe it's the fact that Sam and Dean were both attacked by masked vigilantes hoping to avoid the apocalypse by eliminating the horror-hunting brothers, and I don't wanna leave before I see them get out of this jam.
But even though I haven't seen this episode before and the tension is high, let's be honest – I'm not caught up to this season of the show and I don't know what's going on. Really, I just don't want to leave this place I love, and I'm afraid that I won't ever get to come back to the people and the places and the Taco Bell I care about so much.
But God is good, and his paths are perfect, and if I'm going to come back here, then it'll be great and he will lead me here. And if I never set foot in this county again, then that will be what God wants for me.
So here's to God's plan, and my hope that the road to Cambodia and Uganda and Nepal lead back to dumb ol', flat as a board, Northeast Indiana.
