The Art of Letting Go

This past Sunday was my last house church meeting. Since God has called me to marry my dearest Matthew, He has also called me to "go and make disciples" outside of the Apex community. I accepted His path for my life on October 22, 2006 and it came with a beautifully shiny ring too. =) But I have had many moments of reaccepting God's way in my life since then. Hard times like thinking of possibly giving up Cheddar, the threat of what could be seen as worldly financial failure, and many more hurdles have come over the past ten months of engagement.

One of the biggest struggles was that of leaving a part of the Body of Christ that is so firmly desiring the Lord. The roots of Apex is built on a true desire to exalt our Lord in all His beauty. And it's not just an exalting of God's love and forgiveness, but also an exalting of God's wrath and the parts of His character that we'd prefer to sweep under the rug of Christianity because we do not understand His mystery. As my dear friend Rob once made the illusion, God's character is like a cup. It's a cup of wrath, a cup of love, a cup of forgiveness. And His entire character is all in one cup. You either take it or leave it.

Last weekend I stepped into 5200 Far Hills Ave. to talk to my roommate. I passed by familiar faces in the hallway. I climbed the stairs, listening to Abi and Crystal's outpour of dedication blaring through the speakers. I remember when... filled my thoughts. And it occurred to me that there would be one day that I would walk into 5200 and come to the realization that I no longer knew anyone there. I no longer knew what songs they were singing. And the few familiar faces that I knew would fade into the sea of unfamiliar ones. There was just this distance... this indescribable distance...


I was gone for two weeks. I felt bad about not being able to attend house church, but I had to support Matt. And the best way I can say I love you sometimes is just to be standing there. He was nervous. It was his first mission trip to organize. Miamisburg people mean a lot to him and he didn't want to disappoint. He needed reassurance. I can't promise to offer him the right words at the right time. But I hope he felt my support. And when I came back I didn't have much time to think through the end of house church. Wise words once reaffirmed the grieving process of saying goodbye. But the words of goodbye carry more of a sting than I am willing to acknowledge sometimes.

I am not a finished product. Therefore, there are still peaks and valley ahead. There are still trials and joys. And it would be naive of me to solely focus on the joys without acknowledging the trials. Call me a pessimist at times, but I just call me real and God calls me "beloved" and "beautiful".

I was thinking last night, as I usually do before bed, and I realised that I could very easily see me as a wife of Matt. You may think, "well it's a good thing since you are marrying him", but I often think that many girls get so wrapped up in the romanticised "wife" that the daily unromances of life disappoints them after the honeymoon phase is complete. And let me remind you that it is such a mindset of romanticism that has my generation and the one before us in over a 50% divorce rate. But it was last night as I was getting all cozy before bed that my mind dusted through our newly furnished apartment and began to think of it as a home.

Home to me has never been defined by furniture, but by people and pets. Cheddar visited the apartment last night. He did much better than his initial visit and followed Robin and I around the apartment, sprawling out on the floor beside us. It put me at ease to see his comfort. And with Paris in the kitchen, Kenya in the living room, and a few displacements, the unfamiliar began to become familiar. And I began to tell Robin of the 'I like it's of the apartment.

So, this rambling of thought was placed into the nothingness of the blogging world just to say that change is hard but as I begin to see the big puzzle pieces fall into place, home has begun to look like Matt and my apartment and a small church of 200 or so. So, Matt... it's progress. One step at a time...... the art of letting go.