Roots

It's my birthday today. It's also the day before Thanksgiving. I'm sitting in a bustling Caribou Coffee in Burnsville, Minnesota, drinking the most amazing mocha I have ever tasted. (Chunks of dark chocolate, melted into coffee. Heaven.) As I sit here blogging, Nate sits across from me with a textbook open in front of him that he is paying no attention to because he can't resist the temptation of his newly acquired internet phone. We came here to do homework, but y'all can see how well that plan is going.

26. !!! I should officially begin emerging from my quarter-life crisis this year. While all those 50ish-year-olds are feeling discontent with all the things that have long since been settled in their lives, all of us 25ish-year-olds are struggling to have ANYTHING be settled. We're in transition, we're moving, we're figuring out who we are and want to be and what exactly to do with life. We're figuring out who our past families were and who our future families are going to be. There's so much that's in flux.

This year does feel like it has the potential to yield something like settledness, or at least the beginnings of it (though considering the adventurer I married, I'm not holding my breath on that). There's plans for our most permanent move yet, for a committed church home, and for life in only one geographic location for the foreseeable future. There's a growing possibility of roots.



Awhile ago Nate made me a promise that he would never uproot me unless the Lord was clearly leading us both in a specific direction. It was his way of trying to make it possible for me to relax, to feel a sense of safety with him and in whatever life we share - to feel the freedom to put down some roots, without the fear of having them ripped up without warning. It's not that he would make a decision like that without me, but his saying that allowed me to listen to all of his scheming and dreaming without feeling anxiety and fear rise like a water table in my heart. It allowed me to breathe, to rest, to know that I won't be blindsided by yet another transition - and that if transition does come, I will be as invested in the process as Nate.

This is going to be a big year for us. Lots of changes, but the kind that yield long-term, lasting results. Next year at this time, I'm hoping and dreaming of having some very real roots for the first time since I graduated from college. I'm excited. I'm afraid of being disappointed. I'm trying to balance my desire for rootedness in this life with the knowledge that my ultimate Home can only ever be with Christ. But I feel like I've been in a tunnel for the past 3 years, and just now am starting to see some light, some real hope for the thriving Life I have been looking everywhere for. I think 26 is going to be a good year.