I have recently resigned from all of my various titles/positions at the rec center. Not because I don't enjoy or value them, but because I am officially moving. Permanently. Not just for 9 months of the year as a college student, but as a person. Permanently and definitively moving.
***Does this make me a real, live, walking, talking, functioning adult?? Because I'm so not ready for that. If I can move without being an adult, then bring it on. But if this makes me an adult, then I am in so much trouble... I don't know why, but I don't want to be an adult. Ever. Maybe it was the early influence of reading The Little Prince, or maybe it was one too many bed-jumping sessions, or too much splashing in puddles, or too much ice cream before dinner, or one too many bent rules, or something, but I just can't wrap my head around the idea of me being an adult. Eeeeek!!***
The reason I am resigning and not just going on extended leave, or inactive employee status, is because I don't know if I am ever going to live in Colorado again. I don't know when I would be in Colorado long enough to need a job.
The thought of this makes me very, very sad. I am a Colorado girl. Through and through. Not that I can't adapt to other places, but if we're just being honest, I belong in that state. It's just an awesome place, period. And I'm built for it. Hiking, camping, biking, climbing, stargazing, x-country skiing, swimming, thru-hiking, snowboarding, downhill skiing, snowshoing, 300 days of sunshine, working hard to play even harder, wearing flannel and chacos, always carrying a nalgene, shorts, a blanket, and a snow shovel in my car - all for the same day- thinking that a brand new Subaru is the best car any girl could ever want.... Let's just call it what it is, shall we? I first and foremost define myself as a daughter of Christ, and secondly as a Colorado girl. I belong there. Or at least I feel like it.
And suddenly, having to put on paper for someone else to see, that I won't be going back... that makes me sad. I'm really not sure what to do with this feeling. The world is such a big place, and I don't know where the Lord would have me go. I just know it's not Colorado.
This is something I've been resisting for a long time, hoping that I could hold on just a bit longer to the things I hold so dear. The time I spent there. But I feel the calendar rolling forward more and more, I feel time betraying me and breaking my heart, and as desperately as I want to cling to that - to my life and my experiences and the abiding love I always will have for that place - I have been convicted. It's time to let go. Until I let go of what I have had in the past, God cannot use me now. And He cannot prepare me for the future.
Trying to place my feet in the past, the present, and the future not only requires an extra leg that I do not have, it also requires some extraordinary acrobatics that I can no longer manage. I am tired of fooling myself into this crazy circus-style straddling act, trying to maintain control through my own means. I know that I truly do not belong there - it is a safety net that I do not need. For me to keep this job any longer, or this belief that I will someday return is saying that God is not enough. He has led me here, so here I will stay. With contentment. I belong here now. And later, I will belong (Lord willing) somewhere else.
Tearing yourself from something so familiar, so comfortable, and so adored is a hard and painful thing to do. The deep nostalgia that I have for that place is so rooted in me that giving this up, officially admitting what I have known for a long time, relinquishes so much of my identity that I feel a tad lost and overwhelmed. This is not homesickness, this is redefining my entire identity and rooting it more deeply in Christ, right now. I am, and always will be a Colorado girl, because it defines how I grew up, what I know and hold dear, the things I value, the way I play... But it cannot, and will not, define my home or my life course.
This is, I suppose, just another (very different) part of dying to yourself. It is time for me to say adieu, and plant myself boldly with both feet firmly in the present, with Christ as my foundation. As hard and sad as it is to admit this to myself, it must be done. And so I say to you, great state of Colorado, a tearful farewell, knowing that the Lord withholds nothing good from me, and trusting in His sovereign grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment