Goodbye

I have never left well. I'm a runner, an escaper, and I come from a long line of leavers. I color it pretty, as best as I can, but the deep current of my heart rushes to beat feet, run away, slink around the corners and perimeters as I exit, slipping out quietly, hoping no one will notice.

The goodbyes have begun and the tears run freely these days. I tell my home-group I always imagined the weeks before my wedding to be full and rich and unencumbered happiness and bliss, but the truth is I am so conflicted with emotion: happiness and sadness, joy and longing, expectation and heartache. When we leave Nate's backyard after the ceremony and reception, we leave Texas.

In seven days we leave Texas, our unexpected home.

The realization of what we're leaving hits hard these weeks. God has disciplined us here and loved us, taught us and grown us, trained us and now sends us, and I don't think either of us expected any of this. Five months ago he was a tall bearded near stranger and I was entertaining thoughts of life-long singleness and service to the local church. We were okay, you know? We were content and serving the Lord and our church and how much can change so quickly?

It is less about falling in love and more about falling in life. There have been so many times the past few months I think to myself, "Shouldn't this be harder? More difficult? More wrought with question and doubt and wrestling?" Nothing in my life has come easily and this love came so easily, this move so seamlessly, this job so joyfully—how does one stand beneath the waterfall of common grace and not drown? How do any of us cup our hands and receive all the goodness from God and not stand in still and silent wonder?

I wish I could slow time the next week. I never thought I would be married, never thought I would miss Texas, never dreamed I'd move to Colorado, never expected the gifts of God to taste so good—and feel so full and final.

I want to say goodbye well. Goodbye well to all that Texas has given me, shown me, the ways it has loved me and grown me, but the tension of so much hello on goodbye's heels feels impossible. I think the goodbyes will happen in increments over the next few months and I think that might be the grace of God too. Gulps of glory one cup at a time.

Texas, I love you. I don't love your hot summers or your big box stores or sprawling suburbs. But I love your people and I love how you took me away from all the things I thought I loved best so I could see Christ was alone my good. The Village Church, Steps and Recovery, Jeff and Marianne Haley and their parenting of me, Jen Wilkin and her Women's Bible Study, Matt and Lauren Chandler and the way they have cheered me on, my amazing home-group, Geoff Ashley and his shepherding, Shea Sumlin's faithful teaching of the word, Radio Lab Discussion Group and the 1099ers, Roots Coffeehouse, the Meadow-Lane girls, Sower of Seeds International Ministries and Red Light Rescue—each of you a glimpse of heaven and eternity and I can't wait.

Goodbye. I love you. And thank you. I am a life that was changed.

But as for me, the nearness of God is my good. Psalm 73:28