Wednesday, January 25, 2012

leave

About 5 years ago, I left home.  I packed my things, moved to Colorado and I started this blog. I'm really thankful for this blog because I can look back on my time in the 'rado and remember how I felt when I was away from "all-things-comfortable". So that when I start thinking about going back to "all-things-uncomfortable" I can either get really terrified or really excited (depending on the day, hour or minute). I was looking back on a post from 2007 when I first moved out west, and I quoted Donald Miller because it was relevant to my life (having just left home)....as I re read it tonight, it feels relevant again, like I was supposed to read it again on this night, with this mood, and this mindset.....it feels alive to me again but in a very different way. Here is the quote I am referring to:
"It is interesting how you sometimes have to leave home before you can ask difficult questions, how the questions never come up in the bedroom you grew up in, in the town in which you were born. It’s funny how you can’t ask difficult questions in a familiar place, how you have to stand back a few feet and see things in a new way before you realize nothing that is happening to you is normal
The trouble with you and me is we are used to what is happening to us...........


We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it?
It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you.

Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn’t it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don’t worry. Everything will be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."

~Through Painted Deserts, Donald Miller

It makes my heart leap and sink when I think about leaving Philadelphia. To think about what I have done, and all I have accomplished; the friends I have made from then until now. But that yearning to leave is still there...on the tip of my tongue, tugging on my heart strings, hanging on every thought. I wonder if it's because I am naturally a wanderer. If I will ever be satisfied. Sometimes I think the word "stay" is a harder concept for me to grasp when so many others love it and just roll around in it until their hands get all pruny.

I have stayed in Philadelphia for 3.5 years now. I have tried out "staying" and I think it fits me. But, ironically enough, the feeling of  "leave" never quite exits my mind and heart.  For now I am here and I am content because like most Christians the point is to be content where you are, right?  Find fulfillment in Christ and the rest will follow suit. I just always questions why then, am I always leaving...