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.

The End of Junior Year

As the end of another school year dawns on me…there are many mixed emotions that I feel. I am filled with excitement and joy at the thought of leaving for Zimbabwe in a few days…the excitement and joy there is in seeing my amazing man and spending three whole months together over joys my heart. I can’t wait to be there serving the Lord with him, laughing with him, talking with him, loving him and simply soaking up each and every sweet moment with him.

Although there is a huge amount of sweetness ahead, there is also this bitterness that lies in this up coming season, not a resentment type of bitterness but rather a bitter-sweetness. As this year comes to an end, I only have one more year until I have my Social Work degree and until I return home, those two things fill my heart with great excitement. However, there are some goodbyes that lie ahead. I have spent three(soon to be four) growing, challenging and beautiful years at APU with some amazing people that will forever be a part of my life. However, some will not and I will be saying goodbye and even the ones that will, it doesn’t make saying goodbye any easier. I remember the very first time I left Zimbabwe and someone said to me the goodbyes will get easier each time, oh how they were so wrong. The goodbyes on both sides of the world get harder and harder each time. My life seems filled with goodbyes, well I guess more like see you laters, but boy oh boy are they extremely hard see you laters. Having three countries in the world that have some very special people, is a hard place to be, Zimbabwe, England and America. Zimbabwe and the people that are there, my Rob, is my home, it is the place my heart yearns for. England has my very precious family, my mum and my brothers. America has the place I have developed my skills, passions, and where I have made the most wonderful girlfriends that I get to do life with each and everyday. We have walked through heartaches, deaths, family separations, betrayals, as well as great achievements, jobs, celebrations, awards, leadership opportunities, and huge God moments in each of our lives. These girls have become more than my friends they have become my sisters, my family. Then there are the woman that have poured into my life in ways that I could never have imagined or dreamed of, that have gone to doctors appointments with me, sat by me in the hospital, had lunches and coffee dates with me, have walked through trying times and rejoicing times, these woman have been salt and light in my life, they have sat quietly with me and they have spoken words of truth over me. They are woman that have been used by God to continually shape and mold me.

I know I still have a year ahead of me filled with great moments but this past weekend I went to watch some of my beautiful friends graduate and got to partake in the bitter-sweetness of that moment with them and my heart for the first time truly felt the weight of the season that lies ahead for me. It’s not a negative weight or a negative season, it truly is a bitter-sweet one, which is beautiful. You see there wouldn’t be any problem if this was hard because it was negative, the difficulty lies in that this is beautiful that the relationships I have in many parts of the world are deep and real and genuine and that that is why saying goodbyes is hard, because we have some special. I am so very blessed to know and be known by all these beautiful people. I am blessed to have something to grieve over saying goodbye to. I am blessed that walking out of one season and into another is both beautiful and extremely hard. I am blessed because my life is deeply enriched through all of these moments I have shared and will continue to share with people over the next year and then the years that are still to come too. I am blessed.

Thank you God for beautiful people, for beautiful moments, and for beautiful seasons. Thank you that the bitter-sweetness of life is a beautiful and hard thing and thank you that I have an enriched life through the people that you have brought my way. Thank you that as we embark on another part of this journey and another season, that you are there with us, in the bitter moments and in the sweet ones. Thank you that you are ever-present. Thank you for life, friends and family. AMEN.