What I'll miss.

I think that one of the best ways to move forward in preparing to move to South Asia (about which I am irreversibly pumped) is to consciously acknowledge what will be left behind.  Here we go:

FAMILY

This includes the pleasure of:

my mother and her love for the sea (and for Talbots couture)

my father's fishing stories

(we're talkin' real big fish, here)

 and The Sister Formerly Known as Boo's epic antics.

 

AUBURN FOOTBALL

The team and I had a close bond last season.  But perhaps doing without my butting up in their pre-game drills will enhance their performance in 2010.

My sorority sister Abby and I tried to show the team how they needed to put in work.

We practiced chest butting, too-

sometimes we missed.

Mostly, though, I'll miss the dear friends with whom I watched every game for two years.

War Eagle.

STARBUCKS

I don't drink coffee, but I love Starbucks.  The passion tea, the people watching, and the worldwide consistency are immensely appealing to me.  Whether in Japan, England, Belgium, or anywhere in the United States, Starbucks offers a consistent atmosphere and consistent products.

There is no Starbucks where I'm headed.

TALLAHASSEE

I love Tallahassee.  

I love the canopy roads,

 the arts, 

 the politics,

the astounding and endearing diaspora of citizens for whom where are hardly words, 
(shot this little gem poolside at Premiere Health and Fitness Center)

the Chain of Parks downtown and the Spanish moss hanging from ancient oaks,

 and my father's homemade ice cream.

(Here he is buying ingredients.  This was the look on his face the first time he told me that he sneaks an ENTIRE extra can of evaporated milk [read: thigh expansion] in the dish.  No wonder the women in our house waddle around after he makes a cannister.)


Among the things I'll miss most, though, is this:

my home.

This is the sanctuary at my home church, First Baptist.  My parents held my infant dedication in this room.  I asked Jesus Christ to be my Lord in this room.  I was baptized in this room.  I took my first communion in this room.  I have been healthily rebuked and lovingly affirmed in this room. 

I have sung from that choir loft.  I have accompanied choirs from that piano.  (Much to my dismay, I have not drummed from those drums.)  When the room was empty and the lights were off, I have come to that balcony and knelt in prayer more times than I could count.

I know no greater sense of center.  Part of me would give anything to stay there all day, every day!  There is no place the world over where I feel as safe, accepted, loved, or redeemed.  But that's the rub: because I have been redeemed I cannot stay.

I could, I suppose; but to stay would be immensely unfulfilling.  I've grown to understand that I was rescued that I might rescue others.  The most selfish thing I could possibly do with the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ would be to keep it to myself in this room.  Only in taking out into the world what I've received here will I fulfill the Great Commission.

I was with a group of southerners on the Fourth of July (all recent graduates of Auburn, Alabama, Davidson, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest) and when Tim McGraw's "Where the Green Grass Grows" came on the radio I left the room because I knew that the course of my life was changing in a mammoth way, and I couldn't keep from crying over the thought of living or building a family outside the South.  But that was one of the greatest lessons I began to learn this summer- realizing how much of my life's plans I've relegated to a pitifully small box, thereby limiting my ability to see the height and depth of all the Lord would have me know of his glory through seeing his strength made perfect in my weakness.

This is not to say that these things I've desired are inherently bad.  For some people the best way to be about the glory of the Lord may very well be to spend hours upon hours in that sanctuary, or especially to live their whole lives in the American South.  But for me, the southern living plan had become a non-negotiable.  Non-negotiables, outside the Gospel and its principles by which we live to be like Christ, have little place in our heads or in our hearts.  Not if we long to know the height and depth of the Lord's majesty.  

God gives us extensive free will, and often bequeaths us multiple doors blessed by his pleasure from which we are to choose our own journeys.  We can conscientiously choose every safe path, every safe room, and every safe companion.  But while none of us is called to seek out our own martyrdom under the banner of "taking risks for Jesus," none of us will know the perfection of the Lord's strength without positioning ourselves to have our own weakness exposed.