Moving On

My life has been tumultuous over the last two weeks. I was set up with a potential girlfriend, had a great first date, but things fizzled from there and ended last night. My landlords moved back and announced that they're not renewing our lease. Then I found a new place that's even better than this one. A few days after that, I found out I had only been looking at one region for my book sales, so what I thought was 1600 downloads in the last six weeks was really over 1900. I finished a query letter proposal for this book and did one round of editing on the proposal so now all that remains is a second round of editing and then researching agents and publishing companies. Then today, the woman I volunteer for at the church bookstore let slip a secret she had promised to keep, which led to several unpleasant conversations with a couple other parties, one of whom wasn't even involved. Lastly, it came out that I'm going to another church, so the boss of this bookstore manager fired me. That's an awful lot in two weeks. And now comes the part that I've been most looking forward to and least looking forward to: returning to Virginia, which I still think of as home. I'm looking forward to it because I'll see my friends again, some of whom are like family to me. There will be hugs aplenty, which I get maybe once a week around here if I'm lucky. There will be laughs and deep conversations and lots of catching up. But then comes the part that makes me not look forward to it: leaving. It's not just that I will have to say goodbye again to these people; it's that when I say goodbye this time, I don't know when I'll see them again. One friend has already moved away and another is moving in a couple of weeks, so it's actually likely I'll never see them again after this weekend. It's almost like in the winter when you've been out in the cold for a while, knowing that there's a merry fire crackling in the fireplace. You were there once, but had to leave to shovel snow. You're invited back in, but it's almost worse to go in again because you're finally used to the cold, so getting warm and then going back out again makes it that much worse. Yet I need the warmth. I need the friendship and love that I've been almost entirely without for the last seven months. I know God is in control. The way He handled my future living accommodations is amazing and how the book has been selling is encouraging as well. For the other situations, I may not understand why they happened, but there's a reason somewhere. There's not really a Christian point to all of this. If anything, it's that I'm growing in my trust in God. Through everything that's happened this past couple of weeks, I've remained calm and my faith in God hasn't wavered. All I have to do is trust in Him to not let me fall, and then do what He bids me to do. Much easier and more productive than kicking and flailing and fighting Him every step of the way... :)