I lay on the rose-covered quilt staring at the pale and dark green of the surrounding walls. Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath I could smell… pomegranates. Or, whatever that candle I got at a garage sale for $1 happened to be.
“Enter as Strangers, Leave as Friends.” That’s what my wall said, right above Guido the white dresser. I laughed a little thinking about the day I nailed that board into the wall, and my friends endless inquiries, “What’s that even suppose to mean?”
This was it. The last night. It’s hard to explain all the thoughts flooding through the head of a 17-year-old leaving home… maybe forever. Thoughts from all the years I’d been in that house, thoughts about how many hours I’d spent there with the people I’d grown to love. How many mornings I’d waken up early to do calculus problems, how many slumber parties I’d had in that basement with my friends… sometimes in tents, with microwave smores.
All the crazy games my friends and I would make up to keep ourselves awake all night, continuously downing bon-bons from a gallon bucket which once held Neapolitan ice cream. It had since been transformed into a candy treasure chest. We were usually sick by morning.
I wanted to laugh, and cry, and scream, and sing, and dance, and frankly, to curl up into the fetal position and hide under my bed forever. As an alternative, I reached for my leather bound and imprinted journal with the giant Celtic circle on the front.
“As I find myself writing here tonight by candlelight, I can only wonder what adventures You hold in store for my future. My emotions are in a hyperactive state, I feel a little bit like I’m tied to the end of a Skip It… Daddy… I don’t want to walk this path alone. Protect my heart in these next few years, help me to see like you see, to love like you love, to serve like you serve.
That I should even have the slightest access to your ear is mind boggling, and yet you call me your beloved child. I don’t like waiting for answers, but this is where I find myself again. You tell me to be content, You tell me not to worry, because You will bring everything to pass in your perfect timing. While my heard knows that’s true, my head still often doubts.
My college years are yours. Thank you for providing for me and my family when I don’t see the options. I plead with you to continue to provide so I can dedicate these next years to sharing the gospel with people.
You give me joy that’s unspeakable…”
The letters found their way across the page for another hour or so before my head fell with the finality of sleep against the white embroidered pillow sham.
Then came life.
I sit here a few year later, and some things are very different, but other things, they never change. Faithfulness. Love. Grace. Mercy. Those things never change, because they're attributes of my unchanging God. I wish I had time to document all the stories, all the dreams, all the tears, and people who’ve come in and out of my life over the past two years. Alas, the coming of life makes that difficult.
But it’s okay. Maybe someday I’ll have the chance to fill my journal in on the adventure. Until then, it’s painted in the ebb and flow of existence, and on the heart of the God of the universe who loves me and I Him. I may not have time to write this story, but praise the Lord he lets me live it.
Then life continued. So long for now.
