I read again the letter my real dad gave to me the day I left Florida. I hadn't read it since September, but I bawled again just like I did the first time I opened it. In a sense, he gave me away as a bride to California on that day. My dad included money in it originally; it was a large sacrifice for him. Today I still keep my emergency cash fund in the same envelope to remind me of the forgiveness, grace, and love that none of us deserve yet we all require.
I skimmed over the cards from my real mom, sent during holidays and simply signed "Love, Mom" with the same blue handwriting. I put them in the box, took a deep breath, and moved on.
I got to the letters from my great grandma, now kept in a separate pile of their own. I read through some of them, smiling as she so calmly stated "I saw a bear this morn" or confided that she needed to eat less cookies (vanity, apparently, is never outgrown). I read again and again through letters asking if I had enough money, if I had found work yet, if I had food to eat. I laughed, remembering the letters where she included a five dollar bill saying "I hope this helps you get some food" or "I was going to send you chocolate, but it would melt. Buy yourself one, or maybe an ice cream." Precious.
I pulled down the cards from friends and friends' moms back East. Christmas cards, love notes tenderly placed in care packages, thank you cards, "miss you and see you soon" letters were tacked to my wall to remind me of where I came from. I pulled down an equal number of notes and cards from new friends here out West to encourage me to keep going, to press on with purpose in every step.
I reread Bible verses I had so carefully chosen throughout the year. I remembered writing each one, recalling the season it had been specifically chosen for. I unstuck photos of the people I love and the memories I shared with them. I pulled down mementos, post cards, foreign currency, Mat Kearney's guitar pick.
So many beautiful memories were carefully laid into one dark box.
And then I cried.
I cried because God is so good. Because my life is so beautiful. Because I am surrounded by so much love and filled with so much joy.
My life is nothing like I thought it would be. I never planned to leave home at sixteen. I never thought I'd pick up and move to the other side of the country by myself. I never imagined the provision God would grace me with. I never anticipated going to a private Christian school. I never dreamed of studying social work or working in a church. I never thought I'd become fluent in Spanish and frequent Mexico. I never felt the transition would be so easy or I'd fall in love so quickly with a place so foreign.
It is crazy to think that the people I love so deeply today I did not know nine months ago. I cannot wrap my mind around not having my beautiful friends surrounding me. I don't know how I functioned without midnight Donut Man runs, late-night conversations about the questions in life that matter, "family dinners" in the caf, breaking fire codes for the sake of movie night in a tiny dorm room, crackling bonfires with an acoustic guitar, cries out and responses to prayer. There is so much value in relationship, both with God and each other.
I have changed so much over the last nine months. Moving away forces you to re-evaluate who you are, what you stand for, where you come from. I've gone from constantly anxious to prepared to be unprepared. I have been deeply convicted about a life of simplicity and generosity, rather than hoarding and greed. I am more aware about my involvement in the globalized crime of unfair labor, conscripted sexual slavery, and environmental and community destruction. I now seek to find my value in the Creator of the Universe rather than the creators of consumerism, greed, and sexual exploitation.
I have been blessed with a new mindset that allows me to see the face of God in the sunrise behind the snow-capped mountains outside my window; in the eyes of a prostitute on Hollywood Boulevard; in a pile of students who don't really know each other yet pray together; in the worn, dusty hands of a Mexican mother; in a professor who asks about my life; in a blessing that comes just in time for the bills to be paid; in an culture that breathes a different air than I do (both literally and figuratively!).
We use a gamut of words around APU: community, formation, intentional, redemption. Yet we use them because they're good. We use them because they're true. Take out one of these themes, and we're a hot mess. I don't want to live in an area without community. I don't want to feed myself nonsense that isn't transformational. I don't want to live my days as if they didn't matter. I don't want to be unable to give or receive the gift of redemption.
Somewhere in this mess of a year, I have realized that my life is not my own. I was created for one single purpose: to love God and to love others. Somehow I knew this all along, yet never realized it nor applied it.
It's been a hard year.
But it's been a good one.
It's been crazy, chaotic, difficult, surprising, stunning, joyful, challenging, formative.
It's been absolutely beautiful.
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