I'm Thankful For The Pain

"I'm thankful for the pain"

71 days ago I moved from the cornfields of Indiana back to the cornfields of Illinois that I grew up in. I returned for the first time one week ago. As I pulled off of I-69, a wave of emotions hit me unexpectedly. Memories began to pour over me like the snow pouring from the sky. I passed the house that I spent my senior year with six of the most amazing girls you'll ever meet. I passed the mint green house on the corner, the home of a couple that has changed my life entirely. The University where just months prior I graduated and yet, it seemed like so long ago that I walked those sidewalks underneath the weight of homework. I passed the complex that held my first apartment. I pulled into the drive of the house of my friends that I spent many evenings at last summer and sat there, looking around. Every where I looked I saw a memory. The scariest part, this wasn't home anymore. 

I moved back to my parents house because I felt the Lord moving and I felt the need of being a daughter once again. The Lord is shaping me in the time of living in the basement of my parents house as a post-grad but my parents house doesn't feel like home either. Recently, I've felt God saying "to rest in Him and to travel." Every time I go to look for a job, conviction closes the computer tab seeking what may be next. He has promised to give me the next step and he has never failed me. In the meantime, I have had the utmost joy of visiting people I love so dearly. A few weeks ago, I headed out to the east coast on a search for a scene that would take my breath away. I hiked, I saw beautiful things but one night, as my sweet friend Steph began telling a story from her day, a revelation struck. It was one of those moments where life stopped. I realized that the most beautiful thing in life are the people around me for there, in their eyes, their actions, their words- I see Jesus. 

As I pulled away from beloved Upland today, tears slid down my cheeks. "God, why? Why does it have to sting every time I leave those I love?" The temptation to love less, to put up walls looked me in the face. In that moment as I headed west, I realized that every tear, every ache of missing someone is worth it because that just means that I am one of the luckiest girls alive. I'm so incredibly blessed to have people in my life worthy to cry over, memories to remind me that I have lived. All of a sudden, the Lord began speaking to me about rejoicing in the reasons surrounding me for the pain I was feeling. 

So this evening as I rest, I'm thankful for the pain of good-byes because it simply means that the good-byes are ones said to relationships that have changed me and shaped me and for that, I will never regret loving deeply.