One of my favorite things I love to do with a friend is commune over a meal. Some might say it is because I am a foodie and I love trying new things, but the truth of the matter is, I thoroughly enjoy eating with a friend and talking about fun, challenging and deep things. I think there is a lot to be said about sharing a meal with someone. In a sense, its vulnerable and in another sense its centered around the art of giving. If I could ask Jesus why he feasted with his disciples, I think he might say the closeness and community that happened over simply sharing a meal is really special and one of a kind.
Ten Months ago today, I moved here. I remember the feeling getting off the airplane. I remember going to the grocery store because I had nothing. I remember all these things. Little and big. I remember the snow and how quiet it got when it would lightly dust the pavement. I remember babysitting one night with friend and dying my hair in the next room. I could go on and on and on with "I remember"'s. This place has been so good to me. I feel as if I have redefined who I am and who I want to be. And honestly, I don't know if I could say that if I would have spent this last year in California.
As I was driving home last night, I started crying. Maybe it was the song on the radio, or maybe it was all these memories and ideas and hopes and dreams that flooded my mind. I have learned so much about myself here. Denver has been so good to me and for me. I thought of the doubts I had when I stepped on coloradan soil and how my confidence has grown in a few places. Looking back, it almost felt as if I was reading a journal on my life over the last year, but I wasn't reading anything. All these memories filled my mind and I began to weep. I don't want to leave this place. It has marked my life as pivotal and I am sad to lose it.
Right before I left California last summer, a wonderful friend read me this Donald Miller quote, and then gave it to me in a card:
“And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?
It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.”
I remember her reading this to me and crying. She started crying. It was a special moment. I would read the quote every week when I had just moved here and get teary-eyed. I remember reading it to my roommate not long ago, and tears welling up. I was always afraid of the line at the very end though, the one where he says "you will have changed." It always scared me. How will I have changed? When will I change? What if I don't like the way I change? I dont want to change.
This season of change has been so good for me. It is bittersweet. I do not want to leave here and how it has marked such a rich change in my life, but I know why I want and need to be back in LA. I had no idea I would be called to go back to LA so quickly.
Today I am grieving Colorado and all it has meant to me. If I had no grievance in my heart, I wouldn't mean nearly as much as it has.
I love that quote. Which book is it from?
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