Goodbye, Ordinary (or) Finding Home

Hey guys!

Thank you SO much for your prayers! I’ve got a line on the first floor of this house in Greensburg that they’ll let me rent for three months, and I can move in this weekend!

I keep thinking I need to get this out, so here goes:

I feel like I’m waving goodbye to the ordinary life, the life I thought I’d have. My life schedule used to be something like

Grow up
Save money
Buy a house
Get married
Raise kids
Uh… live happily ever after.

But my list got trashed. There’s another life out there for me. Mine is not going to be an ordinary or the expected life. I got clued into that with renting and Jumonville. I just have this feeling that God is prying my fingers loose from all the dreams I held so tight-fistedly.

Not to say I won’t get married or don’t want to; I do! but this isn’t the time.

Every way I’d planned my life is going up in smoke. And it’s just a little frightening, I’m not gonna lie. In some ways, finding this apartment is an answer to prayer, and in others, it’s scary. It’s not like anything I’ve done before. This’ll be the first time I’ve lived somewhere where I wasn’t renting from and living with family. It’ll be my place, but only for three months.

I’m still having a hard time explaining this. I guess the best I can say is that I don’t know how to do this new life story I’m being given. I haven’t the foggiest idea. I’m getting new priorities. I thought I knew how to do the life I was planning, but I thank God that He sabotaged my plans along the way (or let me sabotage them).

So I’m not sure what my life looks like. I think there’s a wedding somewhere, but I don’t know to whom. God is redefining what I think my life is going to look like, and changing all my plans to something far more glorious. It’s not going to be what I thought – none of it is. Goodbye, ordinary.

I was writing in my prayer journal, telling God how scared this whole thing makes me. I’m uncertain. I don’t know what’s happening. I mean, I do, but at the same time, it’s kind of scary. Then God spoke to me this morning from Isaiah 46:

“Listen to me, descendants of Jacob,
all you who remain in Israel.
I have cared for you since you were born.
Yes, I carried you before you were born.
I will be your God throughout your lifetime—
until your hair is white with age.
I made you, and I will care for you.
I will carry you along and save you.

You can’t know how re-assuring that is. Losing God is my worst-case scenario. Nothing worse could POSSIBLY happen to me. My world could fall apart, and it’d be devastating, but I could take it to God. If I lose that relationship, I’m an absolute goner. I’m sunk. I’m shot. I’m over. That’s why that verse meant so much to me – He said “I will be your God *throughout* your lifetime – until your hair is white with age.” He’ll be here for me – through this time of transition to a new place to live out of, and far, far beyond:

“Until your hair is white with age.” So reassuring. “I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.”

So here, in the middle of crazy out-of-control transition where there’s no house I can say is my permenant home, I still *do* have a place to call home.

More than a place. A person.

I call Him Papa.