twenty-nineteen & furnishing
2019 was quite the year. I got to travel to fifteen cities and seven countries. I lived in three of my favorite places in the world - Paris, Washington DC, and New York City. My dad had scary surgery. We grew our organization internationally. I entered into and ended a relationship. I lost friends, I made new ones, I deepened old ones. I interned at a human rights organization and learned to live in the land between the promise and its fulfillment. I wrote my major and its curriculum and got it approved to graduate. I learned to give campus tours and answer any question on my feet and preach to kiddos and teach ballet and theater. I mentored students and oversaw residential life. I learned a new language. I laughed and danced and worshipped and cried more in this year than I ever have. It was a year where growth was eminent & change was obvious, a year I now exit believing whole-heartedly that God is exactly who He says He is.
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“It’s time to furnish” - I felt this on my heart accompanied by the grace and tenderness I know only to be from the Lord, in January of this year. Two and a half years prior, following a wild breakup, I felt God tell me He needed to do construction on my heart.
There is a caution to the process of construction. People don’t get to come in and out of a building in this time, not without hardhats or permits or stake in what is being built. So, in those months, there were few that came through the space, and when I pushed or tested or opened up the caution-taped doors too early, things would come crashing down, hurting us and slowing the process.
But we are built through process and time, and God had promised that He was building me a place with big windows to let the light in, and floors wide and open to dance on. Promises necessitate patience, and finally after a year or so of hard work and healing, the space was livable again. Renovations were still going on, but ultimately it was dwell-able. So I let a new relationship and a whole lot of love in.
Then, in January of this past year I moved across the world to Paris. While beautiful and historic and remarkable from all angles, the city was at first so lonely and foreign to me. One night, I had a horrible anxiety attack in my bed, wildly jet-lagged, homesick, culture-shocked, and achy for those I couldn’t communicate with. As I felt my chest closing in and my heartbeat pick up its pace and that all too familiar drowning feeling, I cried out to God.
And that’s when I heard it - sweet and firm. “It’s time to furnish.”
Peace flooded over me like a wave, and I knew that the construction and renovation was over, and now came the fun part. This season would be one of much growth and learning, of choosing what to keep and what to toss out. Of rearranging and creating and cultivating space. My anxiety stemmed from all that I was trying to keep in the room, and I was all at once reminded that a cluttered and full room is chaotic, while one with space is a palace of peace.
In short, 2019 has looked a lot like a home-decorating show. A this-not-that type of year where I have learned what to keep and what to let go of, what should be permanent and prominent, and what is better kept in the closet. I did a lot of traveling this year, I collected a lot of memories and experiences, I was challenged with the notion of home, and the concept of love. I invested my heart and fought for something that ultimately was not the right thing, and from this I learned much about what it means to guard a heart, and how great and important of a commandment this is.
When I was little, I would have these sudden bursts of creative energy and inspiration to redesign and rearrange my entire bedroom. I would all at once realize that my bed looked better against a different wall, that I could refurbish a desk we kept in the garage, that a bookshelf could instead become a shoe rack. It is perhaps in my nature to design space to make it more livable, serve its purpose better, or just add some new life and color to an already existing space. And ultimately, those bursts of energy would come from the realization that I wanted my room to be a place where people came and felt welcomed, loved, seen heard, and where they wanted to stay for a while.
This is who I want to be, this is the heart God has promised me, though not without much learning & growing pains. And perhaps this is my greatest prayer for 2020 - that I would be a warm and welcoming place for people to come. A place where people know they can come and rest, but also be challenged. Where their hearts will feel sought after, where their dreams will be appreciated. Perhaps us learning to furnish our hearts and make room and get rid and rearrange is the best work we can do in the new year. Maybe this year we are to make both ourselves and the space we inhabit to be not just livable, but full of life.
I have many dreams and goals for 2020, but I thought I’d share some furnishing/decorating/entirely unrelated lessons from the past year -
January: It’s worth evaluating both how much you own, and how much you take with you when you travel. What you carry and possess can often weigh you down.
February: There is big joy in small things - letters, flowers, tiny espresso cups, a smile on the train, a baguette.
March: No matter how much you plan, things will almost always change. Expectation can be an enemy of experience. Whole 30 is really hard to do living in the land of bread, wine, and cheese.
April: Slow down. Try not to rush though life to the next thing - it might take an entirely new city to teach you this one. Two hour lunch breaks and drinking wine all day are real concepts, folks.
May: Goodbyes usually aren’t for good when you think about it. If you fly in off a 9 hour time difference, land at 1 am, and lead worship at 7 am the next day, you will fall asleep onstage when your eyes are closed.
June: Each person you meet is an opportunity to learn something new.
July: Be bold and firm in what you need, be reasonable about what you want. Responsibility as a quality in a partner is of utmost importance.
August: If you turn your phone off for three days to go be in nature, your life won’t end - in fact, it might just begin.
September: God will provide the space you need to do what you need to do, and often it will be better than you imagine. Exposed brick is just the best.
October: People in pain are often the most dangerous. God’s kindness can hurt. Wisdom is a prayer always answered.
November: God will always have joy to give you, but sometimes it’s harder to drag yourself over to get it. Immaturity isn’t really worth engaging with. Eucalyptus is the best & easiest decoration, and it looks good even when dead.
December: We don’t need much, really. Clean out your closet more often. Dream bigger, bigger yet, bigger still.
