For
how long will you mourn what God has deemed unworthy?
Heavy, right?
No, really. Take a second to consider the statement.
Within hours of my arrival on the island, I began
mourning the loss of the comfort of home, my people there, and even material objects
I left behind. This grief hasn’t dissipated the way I expected it would in the
month and some odd days that I’ve been here.
I still miss friends. I still miss Memphis. I have even been missing
past relationships. (That one is hard to
swallow...) To be clear, not all of these things are bad. However, I feel this
incessant internal tension between pining for the comfort of home and well…
comfort- and adapting to where God has placed me.
I feel a sense of purpose here. The lack of close
friends or appointments has been apt for me to be still and listen to God. I’m
learning a lot about where I need to grow and have even been given some
opportunities just in the past month to exercise them. I’ve been blessed with a
lovely condo to live in. I have found a church that I really like. I love my
job have been entrusted with a lot more responsibility at this store. I live on
an island, for Pete’s sake! (Well, really close to it, anyway.) So then, how am
I able to be ungrateful? Comparison.
Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of
all joy,” and I believe that to be true. Social media has become a drug to me
here. I’m incessantly checking to see what’s happening at home, what’s new in my friend’s lives- what I feel
I’m missing out on. My first inclination was to delete all of my social media
accounts. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Dare I even say Pinterest. Surely that
would force me to be present in the now. But the issue isn’t a mere matter of
accessibility. It’s a matter of my heart. I’m so anxious over being in control
of every aspect of my life and eager to plan ahead that I was discussing moving
away within a week of moving to Hilton Head. With that mindset, how could
I possibly root myself here?
It’s time for me to get comfortable with being
uncomfortable.
It is time to open myself up and be fearless in connecting to
this new city and the people that live here.
It’s time to stop mourning what
God has deemed unworthy and trust Him for what’s best ahead.
