Lean

I really don't like leaning. It's uncomfortable and so in between. Honestly, I'd rather sit or stand or maybe even run, than lean. In fact, I typically avoid leaning at all costs.

Ryan and I had to make a pretty big decision in the last 16 hours. I'm sure in a few months or years we'll look back and laugh at the tears that were cried and the intensity of the discussions that we had with our friends and families, but to be honest right now it still feels huge.

The process was clarifying in a lot of ways and absolutely mystifying in others. We were forced to acknowledge just how much we value our friends and how much we love our families. We were in a 16 hour long place where we were really trying to love each other selflessly and figuring out how to make a big decision together as a couple for the first time. It was good. It was also excruciating. The very bigness of it was, perhaps, the draw -- the allure of the something new and challenging, the desire to do something great.

The questions linger. Our decision really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, in fact it doesn't make much sense at all. My head is telling me that I'm crazy, that I am really going to miss out. But I think it is a good decision, maybe even the right decision -- whatever that means.

A few weeks ago I wrote in my journal that I wanted to spend more time in the "place in the center that is and knows," as Robert Frost says. Be careful what you ask for, I just spent one long night there. This was the only place where a decision like this could be made. The trip into that place was scary and marked by insecurities and expectations. Walking past them was nearly impossible, if it weren't for the beckoning of stillness and some sort of knowing. And in that place, that place deep inside that is and knows, fear and hope are so interwoven.

I thought that upon my arrival, and perhaps after a few hours spent there, I would be able to make a decision, that the road ahead would suddenly be lit up. That didn't exactly happen. I was pleading with the Lord to make things more clear -- I was met not with an answer to a question, but with a promise and a tiny bit of direction: "I will be with you...lean not on your own understanding." I trust that God will be with me, I even trust that he is good. And I trust my deepest feeling on this decision, but the part I am really not ok with is the leaning on the Lord -- really buying into the fact that although our decision doesn't make sense, even though it defies what my brain tells me I should do, that it is right.

This morning I woke up and still felt sad and conflicted. But work called and so life kept going. I wasn't really ready for it to, I wanted to pick the decision apart a little more and I wanted to try to make it more rational. But I couldn't. I have been to the place that knows and I, maybe for the first time, want to try leaning. Only a little bit, but its a start. I stopped on my way to work and got some Earl Grey tea. I hardly ever drink Earl Grey but it is so wonderfully calming and soothing and so I thought a cup might be a little help as I start trying to lean.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6