Going somewhere

I would very much like to go somewhere.

This year, when people have asked me what my favorite thing to do is, I have said (because it's a safe thing to say in front I of people when trying to sound cool and because it is actually true), is to go downtown with people and go out to some awesome restaurant, ending the evening with coffee.

Like I said, this is true. But recently have been recontemplating that answer and thinking of other things I miss and legitimately love.

The first thing that pops into my head is South Dakota. Now, that is a story for another day of how I ended up traveling there with my Grandma last summer. It's one of those things you just don't plan on doing, and then when you're in the car on the way six hours into a two-day trip you think, Okay this is happening. This is happening, and I am going, right now.

*I know I am comma happy*

When I think of South Dakota I immediately want to be back there. Notice I didn't say go back, I said be back. I would love to teleport so I didn't have to be in the car looking at corn for so many hours.

This is why I loved it:

My family there is awesome. Getting to know them was an incredible blessing. Seeing them in Michigan would be fantastic, but there are reasons I liked being there. Most of it had to do with their front porch.

Life in South Dakota is slower than life at my house. We weren't at Target multiple times in a day. We weren't constantly on a highway. Trains and planes and engines didn't provide a soundtrack to accompany dinner. There was empty land for the sun to set over.

Bike rides could get you where you wanted to go. Cars were only necessary to a degree. And the nights were quiet.

I sat there alone one Wednesday. I sat alone on their porch one Wednesday night and cried.

I did not know what had happened to me. College was going to be fantastic, I knew I was supposed to go there. My soul had been as hard as a rock so I thought I was pretty prepared for saying goodbye to everything I used to be. That wasn't really planned. That was just the understood reality. Once I left, I was gone. Living with my family wasn't then the assumption or a definite, it became an option.

Leaving meant I had more at my fingertips than I could've imagined before. And I would be on my own to navigate through this thing.

I thought about this as I ignored the book in my lap and swayed up and down in a creaking rocking chair. Staring at the chipping paint surrounding the door frame, inhaling summer breeze laced with layers of dust from the boxed up library under the window sill.

This is what life was supposed to be like, sometimes.

This was a moment when you feel suspended in time somewhat, when you feel like you've pressed pause on your own existence and taken a minute to step outside of it.

Outside looking in and making the realization that you know absolutely nothing about anything. You only know that you are real, and that rocking chair is real, and the One who formed the sun going down loves you. And the people you love are from that same One.

That's doesn't feel like a ton of security when you are potentially being flung into a city you know nothing about. Dear naiive suburbanite girl child, here is life in front of you. Your move.

And the God of the universe was there. He remembers.

He remembers the chipping paint and the squeak of the wobbly screen door. He remembers the wicker side table and the fan that was much to strong for my cold toes.

It took me a long time of contemplating this moment to realize why I liked South Dakota so much.

It wasn't really because of their porch. I have been on a porch or two. It wasn't really because of the summer night, or because I had a moment alone to cry.

I love South Dakota because the Creator whispered to me there.

Emphasis on whispered.

I think I want a booming sound, sometimes. I think that if only the earth shook beneath my feet, and if only a engulfing bass sound rocked my body and ears, if only shattered glass exploded from the windows, if only the church bells rang in chaos with us under them.

If He was big, and He let us see him,

Then I am in for sure.

..


That is why I begged that night. I held my hesitant hands out like a child and prayed Dear Lord, hear me.

I still can only whisper.

But He remembers South Dakota. He sees the rhythm of my typing fingers and He made them that way. He sewed together the compassions of my family and I and the South Dakota sun and made something gorgeous out of it.

Yikes,

I can't keep up with Him.
Or imagine what how He creates, or imagine what is to come.


I hope that from learning in this, I understand more that South Dakota can be anywhere.
That it can be here on my bed in my dorm room, or the California room, or T5, or Chicago.

Let Him come, let Him come.

We are here to hear Your whisper.