I think that I will miss this time in my life. This staying up until 1 or 2 am reading a book and listening to the train pull in. This house with its magical ability to grow plants if I only ask it. This melting pot neighborhood turned calico side-walk. It has been such a safe place to untangle myself. I cannot imagine coming to terms with Hillsboro any other way.

I left that place with my arms full of insecurities that I had never taken seriously before then. I was suddenly worried about what people thought about me because they can make your life so hard when they do not value you. These insecurities have been my constant companions as I look for jobs, plan a wedding, and try to get to know Tyler’s family as my own. I have not made the best of it. Rather, I have wandered from hurt to wound and back again. I have been guarded, desperate, despairing, angry, and altogether ill at ease with myself.

I have never not known who I wanted to be…until this last year. And I have tried my best not to make all of this a problem between God and I. Still, some part of me has often asks in the in between moments if this really is the best way, if God didn’t hurt me a bit unnecessarily, and so on. I have marveled at the fact that something so damaging to myself could possibly have been his plan. I have thought seriously about whether or not I want to entrust next year to his care. And I have told him this, challenged him, and asked him to prove himself good. In the past, he has responded swiftly to such challenges. Not this year.

And yet, I am reminded of my time learning about the Old Testament prophets and the kings of the time. God would raise up, tear down, and make new as he pleased. One king set out for plunder, another for political gain, and another for vengeance; but all of them were moved by the Spirit of God to achieve his purposes. It did not matter if they thought God their enemy or their friend. God still directed their steps even in their rebellion. It was all so that they would know him and so that Israel would be both chastened and protected in turns.

This is what I am reminded of when I think of my time at Hillsboro. I left there so damaged, feeling betrayed and hopeless and…mute. I did not understand what had happened or why. I did not know how to praise God for his justice or his love. And so I said nothing. I have observed and observed this past year and more. I have struggled to be content with this desert he has given me. I have made small forages into understanding and I do not know if I will gain much more than I have now.

For now, it is enough to remember that God answered me when I told him I did not know what to do at Hillsboro. I asked for help, for guidance, and for clarity. Within 24 hours, I was fired. It is hard not to feel like I failed. It is hard not to feel like I required God to jerry-rig the first plan B he has ever made. But today, I remember. I called to him and he answered. I called to him and he moved the hearts of the people around me to be what they were. I called to him and he acted. I expected him to make my work environment better, for him to soften things, or for my enemies to repent and be nicer. Instead, he hardened the heart of pharaoh. 

This apartment is so full of my longing to be in the future already. I want to see this resolved. I want to know that I successfully hold a job for multiple years. I want the reassurance that I did not somehow thwart God’s plan by getting fired or by hating my job. And I want to be free of the insecurities that I packed into my poor fibers as I left there. This apartment has held all of that discontentment and more. For 15 months, I have wrestled with myself and made myself a nuisance to God within these walls. It has been home to my binge cooking, my not eating quite well enough because I hate eating alone, my late night books, my early mornings spent watering my flowers, my quest to find myself …somewhere in the future in one piece again with a direction and a usefulness that I have not been permitted in a long, long time. 

I will miss this place when I am gone. I will miss how safe it has been to know absolutely nothing at all about tomorrow and especially Monday. I hate Mondays. I hate the overwhelming sense of having a whole blank week to fill with my not knowing. A whole new week to hold vigil hoping the phone will ring with news of a job. And I will miss it. ...At the same time, I have never looked forward to missing something so much as I do now.  I am perhaps too eager to meet that grief and to mourn the loss of my freedom and my time. Still, this is my constant prayer.