plans

My whole life, I’ve been anxious. When I was young we had my lungs checked and tested and x-rayed multiple times, thinking something was wrong or that I had asthma, but everything always came back negative. In fifth grade, at the National Chess Championship (yeah, that happened), I left the site early because I couldn’t breathe. At 15, I finally landed in the emergency room, convinced that I couldn’t get enough oxygen and was going to die. I left the hospital with the diagnosis: anxiety disorder.

As an anxious person, I like to know what’s going on. In advance. I had a 15-year life plan when I was 11. I allowed for small changes: mid-way through my third year of high school I decided I wanted a senior year. I added a major and studied abroad, which meant undergrad took a little longer than the three years I originally planned on. But I was always heading in the same direction: doctorate in Library Sciences. It wasn’t until last year that I allowed my plan to be entirely derailed.

And yet, once I admitted that I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, God spoke through many people and circumstances present in my life at the time, and even high-lighted aspects of my story growing up, to steer me towards the possibility of earning my MDiv and to Mars Hill Graduate School. Since then, everything has been falling into place. A family at my church introduced me to their relative in Seattle, who needed a dog- and house-sitter for the weeks before classes start. After moving, I hadn’t even begun the hunt for a new job, and the woman we’re house-sitting for offered me a  copyediting position for her.

Since that initial decision to admit that I don’t know the best path for myself, that first surrendering of plans, my lack of planning has gone far better than my planning ever did. It used to feel like I had to force, struggle for, jump through hoops for what I wanted in life. Now, it’s like the path is being cleared for me.

Which leads to the current struggle: Keller and I are trying to find housing. We’d like to buy, and that seems to make sense, but there are so many factors to consider: price range, location, size, financing options, layouts. It’s tempting to make spreadsheets of pro/con lists and possible budgets and really push for the place we most want. Instead, when enough hurdles come up, we recognize that maybe this isn’t the place we’re meant to be and turn our eyes elsewhere. Sure, it’s only one decision, that of where to live, but in a bigger context it’s a choice of how to live: will we scheme and plan and obsess, or will we trust God to lead us where we need to be?

One thing has already been decided: wherever our money goes, whether it’s a rental or a condo, no matter how big or small, it will be a space in which we invite everyone from our community. Which includes my classmates, sure, but also our friends from Michigan (or DC, Virginia, Jordan, North Carolina, New York) looking for a weekend away, and any new people we meet here. It will be a place to share narratives, to celebrate milestones, to meditate in silence, to give stories the space they deserve, to develop community and grow souls. We covenanted with God: this place is not ours alone, You live here too, and that means that everyone is welcome.