Suddenly

Anyone who knows me…or who has read more than one of my blogs knows how much I have longed to move out of NJ.  For 32 years, I’ve longed to leave. 

Suddenly, I find myself feeling a weird sensation.  I don’t know how or when it happened.  It’s completely unfamiliar to me.  I think that I am beginning to feel….settled.

This week I’ll be in Boston for work.  I look forward to being in my city…walking the streets that I know, smelling the scent of the ocean intermingling with the smells of history.  God has spoken to me so often in the Common, the Public Gardens.  I have learned so much about myself in Harvard Square.  Boston is a symbol of my independence. 

That being said, I am already looking forward to coming…home.  I have reasons to come home.  A church that I am falling back in love with; a job that is the sum total of everything that I’ve learned over the past 15 years; relationships that are forming, and relationships that are being repaired.  I will be moving soon into my own space, on my own, in Philadelphia. 

Life isn’t perfect…at all.  But for the first time….ever(?)…or in a very long time, I feel roots growing.  It’s not been a shattering experience.  It’s been so natural, so smooth.  It seems that God is answering prayers that I have been praying for a very long time.  But…it feels sudden.

Here’s a bit of irony.  About three years ago, my friends and I were passing around the story of bamboo.  Apparently, when you plant bamboo, it takes three years until you can see a sprout and then the bamboo grows exponentially.  Reading what I just wrote and remembering that story….hmmm….makes me excited to see what God is doing.