The Undecorated Apartment

We all have a need to settle, a desire to be grounded, to have a place called home. We love to decorate our places we call home. It is a way of making them our own, a way of creating a space in the world that is just ours, a place that we can return to at the end of long and stressful days, a place to celebrate and rejoice in, a place that we can share with others, a place that can invite them in. We all desire a place like this. A place that will remain constant regardless of the season. However, I am realizing at the moment that the season in which you find yourself can be evidently expressed in your surroundings without you even realizing it.

This is something I discovered recently when I was sitting in my apartment, looking around at the blank and empty walls with a deep aching that this truly doesn’t’ t feel like home, that this is not my home. I can most definitely say that this self-discovery was a difficult one, as I think being honest with ourselves always is. We all value honesty, however when it comes to being honest with ourselves that is where we find ourselves being the most dishonest. So in this moment of brutal honesty with myself, I realized that my apartment is a very vivid and clear representation of where I am at, the season in which I find myself. I am in my last year of college, senior year baby! Yes it is wonderful but with it comes some interesting aspects and self-discoveries. For me, I found that my undecorated apartment reflected my heart and the state of transition that it is in. Every other year of college my apartment has been decorated and it has been one of my most absolute favorite times of the year. However, this year I have everything to decorate with, but it is all so neatly packed in small boxes just sitting. These boxes are filled with wonderful treasures but the fear of allowing those treasures to come out for a small period of time after which everything will change is daunting. This is true of my heart and the treasures that I hold deep within it, there is a fear of allowing that settling and rootedness to continue knowing that before I know it my heart and my apartment will be packed up and onto the next season of life.

This is a season of transition, a time of reflecting back upon, and a time of looking towards but I think we miss the beauty of the undecorated apartment season. The season in which we just get to sit and look around, behind, ahead but most importantly within. To look, deep within and to find our settling and rootedness in one thing, Christ. By no means do I belittle this season; I am processing through this on a constant basis with the people that are nearest and dearest to my heart. But I do think that this is a time of saying Lord no matter what the undecorated apartment looks like may what resides inside be beautiful and glorifying, that in whatever season we may be, that we remember that the God who loves us is there in the midst of that season, that we are never alone, that our God goes with us.

The thing I love about the undecorated apartment is that it pushes to something more, it pushes you to long for something more, it pushes you to search for home. This doesn’t necessarily mean moving from the undecorated apartment but learning to be fully present in the undecorated apartment, learning to give all of you to where you are right now, to be fully present where you are. Today a wise woman said that God’s will is not found in the future but rather it is found right here in this day right where you are at. For any of you that may be like me, I am a planner, I love to have my ducks in a row, I love to look ahead and plan and map out and look forward to. There is nothing wrong with this but when this takes us away from being fully present where we are, we need to check ourselves. The faithfulness of our God is not only found in what lies ahead it is found in this very day, it is found right where you are. When life gets uncomfortable we tend to run towards the next thing that will make life feel good and comfortable but in this we miss the wonder and awe of a God that meets us in the mist of an uncomfortable season, day, or moment.

The undecorated apartment is teaching me many things about myself, about this season, and about honesty with myself. The undecorated apartment has turned from something that was uncomfortable and frustrating to something that has bought clarity, hope and appreciation for seasons and times. It has challenged me to allow for sitting in the now and opening my treasures up to that, knowing that regardless of how quickly or not the now goes by, there will be another now and that will require the very same thing of me. The undecorated apartment is teaching me to be vulnerable and allowing God to be present with me right here and now in the midst of it.

Rest

What does it mean to rest? Hmm...If only I knew ;) Well...this is an interesting season in life for me. I am learning, well more honestly attempting to learn what rest is. It's a word that we use often, however the true meaning of rest is not always used, just like the word love, rest is over used. Unfortunately our society doesn't celebrate periods of rest, we celebrate over great achievements and awards. However we never seem to celebrate rest, because if we are honest with ourselves we are probably deeply afraid of REST. I know that I most certainly am. I am a slight over-achiever; it doesn't have to be in merely academics, it can be in anything. It's terrible. I have to always be busy doing something, whether it is rushing from a class, to an appointment, to work, to a staff meeting, to an event, back to class, don't forget those coffee dates with the girls and then it all starts over again. Weekends jam packed back to back with busyness, wanting to see everybody and do everything, wanting to achieve both my self-goals as well as the things that I think people expect of me. By no means am I proud of all this busyness; rather I am ashamed of it.

So you may be wondering, just like me, well why now write about this. Why realize this now...good question!! :) I think if I had it my way I wouldn't be reflecting on all this stuff. However, for the past 7weeks I have been very ill and it ended with a 2-day stay in the hospital, no fun! So if there is one thing in my life that is constant it is that the Lord uses each and every aspect of my life to teach me something. HE teaches me even when I don't think I am being taught something or that he is talking to me. That is how I felt in the hospital. I felt alone. Yes, my wonderful friends and American family came to visit me and love on me. However, there was this deep sense of loneliness and I couldn't help but want to know why or what it was. It wasn't that God was far away but rather it was that I was far away from myself and the person I desire to be, I was alone because I hadn't stopped for a very long time and spent time with myself and here I was lying in a hospital bed, an IV in my arm, with a bunch of different things going through it, and nothing but myself. I was alone.

In this moment more than anything I wanted to pull that IV out and run, run into the busyness of life, run to class, run to work and run back to class.... I wanted to run. Then it dawned on me that there was something wrong with this picture. Yes, everyone that has been in hospital wants to get out of there, cause it’s awful. However, for me it was different, it was more than merely being in hospital it was this dead holt that my life had come to and all I could think of was everything I still had to get done, papers, assignments, appointments, work...but that is not what I needed to be concerned about. I needed to take a moment to be concerned about what my life was looking like and that pretty much if I carried on along this journey that I would end up a lot worse, completely burnt out and broken down by all the busyness, stress and anxiety.

I am definitely not finding this realization easy. It is hard and painful. There have been lots of tears and processing conversations and lots and lots of prayer and talking with the Lord. I am realizing more and more during this time that I have a constant need to be in control and for everything to always be ok (yes, those of you that know me so well are either nodding or giggling away at this because yes it is indeed true). So there it is the big thing that plagues me during this time, control and everything being ok. I am learning though that "okayness" is not always guaranteed. That there are certainly moments when it feels like the ground beneath me has turned into sinking sand and what I thought was okay isn’t, but the other part of that is that God doesn’t promise everything will be ok BUT what He does promise is that He will never leave of forsake us. So in the midst of the ground turning into sinking sand He is there, in the midst of doctors appointments and hospitals He is there, in the midst of exams He is there and in the midst of death, brokenness, pain, heartache, He is right there. For this I am thankful for because I don’t need to be in control because my God is bigger than any thing I go through and He is not shocked when these stretching and painful seasons come, He is not confused or unsure of what will happen, because He knows, because He is my creator and He is in control.

Rest…this word fascinates me and as I said earlier I am attempting to learn what it truly means and learning how we rest and do we do it well…I don’t know…but what I do know is that I need rest and that I am finding rest in the small ways that I can…I am finding rest in the Lord…in reading books…in writing…in prayer…in conversations…and in beautiful still and silent moments. 

Healing...

Healing is painful…whether it is physical or emotion…it is still painful. After surgery, the recovery process is painful, your body is healing, if it’s a hip replacement, you need time to begin walking again and this process is painful. So just like physical healing, emotional healing is painful. Healing is something that I have struggled with for a large part of my life, I have been sick time and time again and believing for healing has been a challenge. I have been told I simply don’t have enough faith, as well as, that I haven’t tried the latest doctors or technologies. Regardless of what people say, I believe that my healing will come at some point.

Currently however, I am on a different type of journey of healing, I am healing emotionally. I am healing from wounds that I have kept bandaged up for a long time, and wounds I have tried to pretend are not there, until they begun infecting others parts of my being. Emotional healing is painful. There are days, well most days, that I wish I could say it wasn’t. Days when the depth of my soul cries out, but then are those days, the days of hope and sunshine, the days of knowing that this process is called healing and that I am walking in that each and every moment. These are the days that I love, these are the days that encourage not only me, but those around me, these are the days that God’s glory shines through and it is impossible to deny His existence, these are the days of healing.

I think the reason healing is so painful is because there is something that needs to be removed and that is painful, just like taking off a band aid is painful when your little, so is the removal of other things, body parts, bondage, lies, abuse, hurt, un-forgiveness, hate, anger, frustration, denial, etc. The removal is painful but in order to heal, removal is necessary. From there it is then the mending of the wound, the empty place, which then turns into a scar, which for a while, when looking at it, may still be painful BUT after time, it becomes a beautiful reminder of surviving, of fighting, of letting go, of determination, of ashes that were turned into beauty, and of the mourning that becomes joy. Healing is painful but ultimately healing is beautiful.