The Spirit is Moving, and apparently so am I

When I took this job almost a year ago, a huge delight was that I secured the MOST incredible studio loft apartment in the downtown area. I LOVED this place. Of course, as the months went by, I came to realize that I loved it mostly because I imagined entertaining large crowds of people in it, and visitors were much more rare than I had originally hoped.

I actually came to struggle with not liking the apartment, of finding it a rather lonely little space. It was then I got the idea from Elisabeth Elliot's book The Path of Loneliness that I needed to make the apartment a place I shared with Christ. So I converted my closet into a prayer room, which I fell in love with all over again even more than the apartment itself.

Now, it looks like I might be getting a new place to share with my parents. The thought of moving a 5th time in less than 4 years is a little teensy bit grating on the nerves, but I also have peace about this because: a) family helping each other is never a bad idea, b) it will be nice to have human beings to come home to (they don't shed feathers and poop all over the place like my stupid parakeets do), c) my parents will keep enough of an eye on me that I'll have some accountability for taking better care of myself. In other words, if I don't sleep and eat and care for my health regularly, someone will notice and give me a hard time, which I need so much!

I was on the phone briefly today with my eighteen year old cousin who, when I broke the news to her, reacted in such a way that I might as well have told her I was going to live in a tree with a family of rabid squirrels. "Oh Guiney, I would NOT want to move back in with my parents, why are you doing that?" I had to bite my lip, because my first impulse was to get defensive: "Well at least I DID get out on my own", but I took a deep breath, reminding myself that freshman in college know more about life than me (wink, wink). and didn't bother trying to explain it. Being out on your own is nice, but so is having money in savings. Independence is fine and dandy, but I also happen to believe that God "depends" on us to take care of each other, and I want to. (I'd be lying if I didn't also admit that having a dishwasher MASSIVELY appeals to me).

Parting thought: The words of Christ I find most precious are when after healing a man who attempts to then follow him, Jesus turns to him and says, "Go home to your family and tell them what God in his mercy has done for you."