Friday, July 25, 2014

Open Door

The night of April 16th I ran into a college friend looking for a new place with her roommate in Williamson County. She asked for prayers and I replied, "Well, if you find a place with an extra bedroom I'd consider living with both of you. I've been praying for new roommates!"
Only a month later on Saturday May 17th, I saw I had a missed call from my friend and calling her back I learned they'd found a place and it did have an extra bedroom! They were looking at it Monday and I was welcome to join and see the place.

Monday I arrived at a beautiful house in Brentwood with a large yard, a patio, a fire pit, and a lovely garden. I hadn't even gone inside and I was loving this place. The landlord was friendly and agreed to be more flexible about our move in dates. All the logistics were perfect, the price, the space-- so we all decided to start the process.  I felt peace in moving forward and we all gave our landlords notice and applied for our new place together.

As I dreamt about garden space and what I wanted to plant and do with the outside spaces and thought up ideas of gatherings we'd be able to have in our large family room and living areas, I felt this quiet whisper the last week of May. I heard it deep in my spirit whispering, 

"It's going to fall through." 

Knowing how excited I was for a new place, for roommates and how much I loved this house in Brentwood, it wasn't that statement that shocked me as much as what my instant reaction was at this news.

"God, does this mean I can move back to Portland?" I was so excited! Not even slightly disappointed in losing the house. Where did that thought come from? How long had I wanted to move back that badly?

Wait, I thought. I needed to slow down. This hadn't happened yet and as far as I knew I'd still be moving to Brentwood in mid June. So I thought again about my garden, my roommates, but for some reason I couldn't get quite as excited about it anymore.

Monday June 2nd, I looked at my phone to see a message from one of my soon-to-be roommates,
"I need to call you at lunch or after work... let me know which is better. we got some disappointing news abt the house."

With God's little warning that this was coming, my heart leapt for joy. I was giddy and knew I was moving to Portland. It didn't make sense when it was supposed to be bad news, but I was too happy and my stomach was too full of butterflies for me to notice what logic would say.

After officially hearing that the place had fallen through, I wanted to pray about it and think it over. It's quite the decision to leave a place you've lived for four years and although I felt peace about moving forward, I felt I needed to share it with leaders in my life who could tell me I was crazy if I needed to hear that.  Instead of hearing that I had any ounce of insanity, I kept hearing encouragement to trust the Lord with His leading, to trust that He would provide the things that hadn't fallen together yet.

So here I am today, with three days before I leave Nashville, Tennessee to begin my return road trip to Portland, Oregon. I have no official job yet, but I don't have any fears that God will not provide exactly what I need when I need it and that I will find an occupation once I'm there. 

I'm excited as I begin the adventure towards many unknowns with a road trip with my two friends, Bethany Cannon and Deborah Kady. We'll travel through many states (of emotions as well as states in our country) as we celebrate my move, my birthday and the seasons our lives are all in.  I'm blessed to have friends that were eager to join the trip so I have company alongside me. I anticipate great things along the road, memorable moments and funny tales to share. As I have the internet available to update, I will try to keep you apprised of my new adventure :)

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