A Voice of Hope

It Occurred to Me This Morning...

Oh. My. Gosh. How did it get to be October 27th already???????

1 Year Ago...

on this very day I arrived in Nashville.

About 9pm I drove into town (while talking on my cell to Larry) and met John and Jamie at Fido, had some good chai and conversation, then followed John back to the home of his parents, who were so gracious to allow me to live there until I found a place of my own.

My how time flies!

Days Go By

Can you believe it's already August???? It's hard to believe over half the year is already gone. It seems so strange to me to think that, in two more days, I'll have been in Nashville for a year. Wild.

I came with such high hopes and big dreams. I guess that's the story with just about everyone who comes here. But my dreams weren't about the music industry. They were about Mosaic Nashville.

I remember dreaming about getting a big old house somewhere near Belmont or Vandy (I
didn't even know those were "trendy" places at the time) where our team could have meetings and Mosaic LA's overseas workers (aka missionaries) could stay while visiting our community and sharing what God is doing in their country and with their people. I already had some workers lined up in my mind that I wanted to come -- my friends Brian and Lena, Joyce, Brian and Linda, the Clements, the Fudennas, the Harlans, the Burtches.... Oh, I was dreaming big. I had ideas for mission trips and cultural experiences. I was already investigating Nashville's international flavors and thinking about ways to reach out to the international students.

I had so many hopes for our team! I dreamed of building team unity, of us coming together as co-laborers and growing into close family. No, I never expected us all to be great friends. I dreamed of us being tightly bound brothers and sisters in Jesus. I dreamed of us sweating and toiling and getting gritty and real with one another, and of forever changing the face of Nashville by redefining what it means to be a follower of Jesus (a "Christian") and what it looks like to build community ("church"). I ached for Nashville to know community like I knew (and still know, even though I'm so far away) at Mosaic LA. I still ache for that.

Big dreams. High hopes.

They turned into long days, even longer nights. Realities of team dynamics, of a team who wasn't indigenous to either Nashville or Mosaic LA (save two of us), lack of team unity, a leader who didn't know how to build team unity, chaos and lack of planning doomed our efforts from the start. Not to mention the logical chaos of seven people moving to a new city, looking for housing and jobs while also trying to get to know each other.

Then our leader left to take care of urgent personal crises. I was ready to bail. But Jamie, sweet Jamie, came in fighting and convinced me to stay. For a few months I thought perhaps my dreams could become reality. I even dared to dream again; new dreams, altered by the new reality of our little, but growing, Mosaic plant.
But some things end up being too good to be true. And soon enough, change came again, and chaos returned.

Perhaps I'm the only one in chaos now. Perhaps this dream I had wasn't meant for Mosaic Nashville. Perhaps God has other things for me. I don't know. I don't have the answers. I don't have ANY answers.

But I DO know one thing: God brought me out here. This is where I belong. Maybe not for forever, but definitely for now. I felt it the moment I arrived, and every day since. Even with all the uncertainty in my life -- all the where will I live? where will I work? How will I make ends meet? Who will be my friend? -- I am still convinced beyond all reason that I belong here. I belong in Nashville. Every fiber of my being shouts it out every day, with every tree, every thunderstorm, every firefly, every sunset, every warm, muggy evening I experience. Its as if I were made for this place. Perhaps it's just the Crockett blood in me rejoicing that I've finally come home.... but I really think its something God put in me long ago that's finally getting its chance to fly.

I must confess, finding myself feeling once again community-less and once again without a roommate and in need of a place to live by mid-October, feels frustratingly like I have made no progress at all. Yet I know I have. I know so much better whom I can trust (and whom I can't), what I want, what I need, what's important, even invaluable, to me, and who I am.

I know these things because God has walked with me every single day of the last year. He's made His presence powerfully known, whispered His love to me every day, loved on me, talked to me, opened my eyes to new insight and reminded me of lessons past, fought with me, wrestled me to the ground and broken my hip so I'd remember our bout (oh, how I treasure our fights!! The fact that He loves me enough to fight with me rather than just withdraw His love and affection until I "behave" or "get it together" or "live perfectly"!! What a gift it is to be able to get angry and yell and fight back without fear He will stop loving me, or withdraw His hand from me!!). He's always provided what I need, usually at the last possible second; sometimes I thought He was late, but I was wrong. He has an odd sense of timing that is uniquely His own, but it always proves itself Good. He has taught me so many wonderful things! Given me such incredible gifts! Every thunderstorm, every firefly, every snowflake precious God-kisses on my cheek! By knowing God, and wrestling with Him over the questions in my heart, I know myself better. And I see a little clearer who it is He made me to be, and what He dreams for me.

I know that God gave me passion. And the passions I have, and the dreams borne from those passions, must find a place to nest. As they do, I will become more of the woman God dreamed up so very long ago.

Another Sleepless Night...

I couldn't sleep much last night either. I was in bed in plenty of time, but sleep would not come. Same story tonight. It's not that my body doesn't want it. It's that my mind just won't shut up.

I've been restless for several weeks now. I'm hoping my mornings at the Y will help settle me for a bit. It's like everything in me is ready to move on to the next project, except I'm not done with the current one. Why do I always seem to do this? I have to fight to finish what I've begun... the beginning is always more exciting to me than the finishing. It's only when I already know I have another project awaiting my attention that finishing brings satisfaction.

So now I'm restless, ready to move on to.... I have no idea. But it's not time to move on yet. Concentration is hard. Focus is ridiculously impossible. Today I moved from office to office, short task to short task -- only to find my way back to Barbara's office and collapse in the arm chair in front of her desk with a heavy sigh and ask, "is it time to go home yet?"

Ridiculous. Absolutely silly, I tell you. I have work to do, dang it. I have things that should have been done long ago that I'm still struggling to focus to accomplish. AAUUURRGH! I feel like I'm back in grammar school staring out the window at the beauty of spring, swinging my legs under my desk in a wide arc (because I was always too short to reach the floor no matter how small the chair) dreaming that I'm actually on the playground swings, soaring ever higher into a sapphire sky.

:::sigh:::