four months later

It's been four months since I uprooted from my parents' place in Dayton and moved in with college friends here in Cincinnati. It all happened so quickly, I really didn't have a chance to sit back and think about it till after the fact. I remember praying pretty hardcore about the decision, and I felt comfortable with the idea of moving down there. It's not that I "felt" God saying "Do it" or "Don't do it." More-or-less, I knew that whatever I decided to do would be cool in God's eyes. So I made the decision to move down. At first, it was pretty rough. I love all the people here, I love living here, but some of my friendships in Dayton began to disintegrate. I took all that pretty hard: I invest deeply in people, and when those connections are severed, it can be excruciating. I fought for these friendships, but those friends didn't; and because a friendship is a two-way street, there was literally nothing I could do. So I accepted the fact that these things happen, and I became entirely absorbed in my new life down here. Within a few months, it started feeling like home again. My visits to Dayton lessened, and I continued developing the friendships with those people here and making new ones. I'm growing up in more ways than one, and my relationship with God has been moving steadily forward (as it should be). One of my friends in Dayton, before the move, expressed her concern that this would be a bad idea. She felt that doing this would plunge me into a sort of darkness. Quite the opposite! Being so close to so many good friends, living with Christians, and having my little sister by my side... Darkness may describe many of the things I've seen, but not this. My heart's coming alive like never before, a renewed purpose burning like a torch before my eyes. This move down to Cincinnati has definitely been good, and there's no regret whatsoever.

In regards to the friendships lost: it happens. I put a value on those friendships that those friendships didn't deserve. My time in Dayton, a 1.5 year stint (give or take some months here-&-there) was more like a sabbatical than anything. It gave me the time to figure stuff out, gave me the time to really look at my life and my faith and make forward movement. Now I'm back in Cincinnati, and I'm finding that there are friends who pass in and out of your life like you're stuck in the center of a revolving door, and then there are friends who are like family. You know, the friends who stick closer than a brother. The friends who are there for you in all of life's different moments, rejoicing when you rejoice and weeping when you weep. I've found that the more intimate the friendship, the more you get to know someone as they truly are, the more chance there is for earthquakes: little tremors within the friendship, when we don't get along. But these never last long, because our loyalties to one another lie deeper than our little fits and trifling disagreements. My friends in Cincinnati, they're these kinds of friends, and I'm so thankful to be living and working with them. An old Brand New song goes, "Back when you were very young, did you ever think that you would be this blessed?" The answer: No. I certainly am blessed, in so many different ways; and I'm grateful for all that God has done in and for me despite my selfishness, my whining, my scapegoating, and my rebellion. Grace: it's a hallmark of my life, not in the sense of something I possess, but something that possesses me.