For years I have picked on Phil. This is how it started. Early in our marriage, we made not one, but
two, moves across the country to Idaho… and back. There are a variety of stories I could share,
and they’d all be good, and they’d all be true, but for the purposes of this
post, I will share only one…
It was a simpler time in life… a time where we were young and ready to take
on the world. I can remember on at least
one of those trips, I was reading the Anne of Green Gables series for the first
time. And I was sort of caught up in
that picture perfect, fictitious world when we drove through Iowa. In the back of my mind, I could see us
building a little house, nestled in the hills along the highway… raising a
family there… being very happy. It was
beautiful! At some point, I must have
made mention of this to Phil – not in detail, but something like, “I would like
to live in Iowa someday”. This was met
with immediate resistance, because, as it turned out, Phil would never, ever like to live in Iowa… ever. But every time we drove through Iowa, I loved
it. And nothing changed for him. He thought I was certifiably crazy…
I can’t begin to tell you how many times in my life I’ve
heard someone talk about how they were willing to go anywhere… anywhere… except “that one place”, but
that’s exactly where God sent them. When
we landed in Iowa a few years later… and loved it… both of us… we started making silly comments like that, as
well.
Through the years, when we would sense another move coming,
we would actually say things, in jest, like, “I never, ever want to go to
Jamaica!” Very funny… I know… Funnier than you might realize, actually…
And I’m not superstitious or anything like that… and I
legitimately don’t think God is sitting somewhere, unattached from our present
reality, just hoping to send us somewhere we honestly don’t want to go. But I started making a concerted effort to not say things like, “I never want to
live in Lincoln, Nebraska”. Oh my
goodness… did I just say that out loud?
I’m a different person than I was all those years ago. The truth is; I have come to terms with the
fact that anywhere can be home if you’ll let it be. And I was ready to go anywhere… almost.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, there has
always been this one place I would prefer not to go. I mean, more seriously than Lincoln. And we had an interview last week. And I kid you not, 11 minutes down the
express way I found myself sitting in the most dangerous city in the United
States… several years running… the city in which I will buy my groceries if we
go there. The only words that really
came to mind were, “It serves me right”.
When I uttered these words, Phil got quizzical, and I just burst out
laughing. I mean, I was never, ever going there… ever.
It’s probably a little too late in the process, at this
point, to start singing, “Please don’t send us to Africa,” or anything like
that…
But who knows? Maybe
we have been prepared for such a time as this…
L.
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