All the Way Back

There are certain things you just know about a person.

Like I know my love loves where she's from.
I realize she isn't leaving that place.

When I was entirely unfocused on what I know to be true, I entertained a ton of different places to live. I wanted to move across the country. I figured if I wasn't going to be with the woman I love, I could at least lead an interesting life and live interesting places.

Can I tell you that God will change all of that?
And not in an obvious way but subtly, gently
He'll move you in a different direction.

I can't remember the last time I looked at houses in Portland, Oregon.
It use to be all I did.
I sent them to my sister until my entire family was like WTF for wanting to go so far.
I can't remember the last time I looked anywhere across the Mississippi.

I can tell you the last time I looked where she lives: this morning.

And see I never made a conscious effort to stop wanting to run, to stop wanting to explore.
I never did.
God simply reminded me how much I love home and home...isn't moving to Oregon.

A few months back when I initially wrote about wanting to go away,
I wrote that if I was with her she'd never have had to ask me to stay.
She was enough.
Enough to ground me in a physical location because when I was with her it was like flying,
like liberation.
It wouldn't have even cross my mind to go that far from her.

And now
even though nothing is happening that I can see, I feel like....
like I should take a serious look at staying.
I feel like there might be a reason to stay.
God's doing something in me that makes me feel like staying.
He states plainly that He doesn't go back on His Word.
He states plainly that He will be the difference in this situation.
And I trust Him.

I've trusted Him for as long as I can remember.
I was in middle school when my great grandmother died and that was the first time I heard His voice. I was in bed crying about how I missed her and I loved her and He said to me
"I love her more."
I'd never heard the voice of God before but what He said to me and everything my middle school brain knew about Him told me that was true.
He did love her more.
And my young understanding of love and God meant that He'd done what was best for her.
And it told me that He really did hear me.
Middle school is when I started trusting Him.

So I'm going to look at houses where she's from.
And I'm going to look at houses in the South.
Because I've got a feeling backed up by scripture.
Because somewhere in me,
I still believe.
I want to go home.