Going. Staying. Asking.

One of my new favorite bloggers is writing her 31 Days project on the topic of "Going". Which is awesome, because I have been wondering what the heck God could have had up His sleeve around this time last year when we felt like we heard him say "Go to Raleigh". Here we are, but why, exactly?

Seriously. It has been hard.

It's getting better, praise God. I've felt some small breakthroughs on the girl friend front, which has improved my outlook tremendously. I had Mexican food with 3 lovely ladies from our Bible Study last night and I just wanted to jump up and scream "I HAVE FRIENDS! LOOK! WE'RE EATING QUESO TOGETHER!"

And the strange little church we have been attending has been knocking me out with surprises lately. But I have to admit, sometimes I still just want to lie on the floor of the bedroom and cry "What are we doing here, God. I miss my friends. I miss Chicago. This job kind of stinks. There are all kinds of bugs in the apartment. There are no sidewalks. We are broke. And I am really tired." I think that a lot, but I haven't let myself "officially" pray it yet. I know God could take it. I'm just not sure I can. I think I could slip really quickly into wallowing.

So I re-started an old habit that I need to take hold - a Gratitude Journal. Every night before I go to sleep, I list out everything that I am thankful for from the day, whether it's a Pumpkin Spice Latte or the miraculously positive outcome of a very complicated operation that a little baby from our new church just had. For several years in college and my early 20s, I filled notebooks of lists of Thanks. It is a terrifically healing and centering discipline (and joy) to practice, and now apparently all the rage thanks to a great book called One Thousand Gifts.  But it is a discipline, so I need to get back in the groove.

We're coming up on a year in Raleigh in less than 2 months, and our lease will be up in February, which inevitably leads to lots of questions about staying, going, and future. I've come up with all kinds of possible schemes to answer the question "Why did God bring us to Raleigh?". They go something like this:

• To remind me again that His ways are not our ways, and sometimes you just have to do what you think you're being nudged to do.
• To strengthen our marriage with some forced "we are each other's only friend!" quality time (which has actually been awesome, and honestly, if that is the ONLY reason we are here, that would be plenty).
• To get us thinking and talking and praying about what our future family might be.
• To give us each a chance to serve in ways we could never find time for in Chicago (me with Hospice and Les with Big Brothers/Big Sisters and others).
• To make connections in academia that will help Les's future career aspirations.
• To meet a whole bunch of later-life parents, adoptive parents, foster families (fewer of these, but still, a few!), and parents of special needs kids.
• To slow down, draw back, and sink into our life a bit more than we managed to do in IL.

Ok, so all of those actually seem like really excellent reasons to move to NC. I give. They do. But in my experience, it seems just as likely that we may look back at our stint here and be able to point to one or many totally unexpected ways that God rallied us to Him even though we both felt like we were flailing. Things that didn't even make it on the list. 

I still don't know what the future may look like with this job, or Les's job hopes, or our possible future family, or how long we will be here. Sometimes I REALLY just want to go home to my Chicago people. For now, though, I'm going to try to focus on the present, the Raleigh, the good stuff going on around me, and look for ways to jump in. It's exhausting, but much better than whimpering on the sidelines.

And if you're wondering if I'm doing a 31 Days writing project, I am indeed. But it's paper-and-pen style, since there is no way I can manage a post a day up in this piece. If I stick to it, I'll post a highlights reel at the end of the month.