He's doing it again. My sweet beagle is staring me down, tilting his little head to one side. Its his passive way of begging me to take him for a walk. I need fresh air, fresh inspiration, and to move a bit in the great outdoors, and so I give in quickly, gather his lead and plop my shoes on to head out. Its not until I'm crossing the street and spot the sign of the CNN building that my surroundings hit me. Just beyond the next batch of trees, its there, peeking out: The Empire State Building. Seeing its spire has become a part of my daily rhythm, but every once in a while it catches my breath and I realize that I'm actually standing in Central Park. I actually live in New York City.
I wish you were walking with me, gazing across the water of the reservoir at the Guggenheim, eyeing each curve around the path until we reach the rowboats and see the silhouette of the Plaza Hotel to the south.
The iconic scenes that make up my day sometimes go unnoticed, but when I remember to really see them, I love to drink them in. They are welcome moments of beauty in the midst of my routine and remind me of the glimmers of grace God has revealed to me during my time here.
You see, dreaming of New York, holding hopes and imagination about this place, and actually finding a home here are two very different things entirely.
I've always had a bit of wanderlust. The urge to go, to move, to see all I could and experience everything new has always propelled my life choices. I deferred my college years to be a missionary in Asia and if I hadn't met my husband just months before and fallen madly in love, I'm not sure I would have looked back. God has placed something inside of me that has always been up for a grand adventure. So when my husband's job led us to consider a move across the country, away from all family with four kids in tow? My response was instantly, "Yes, of course! Let's do it!"
It was quite a cultural shift moving from the green woods of the Pacific Northwest to the famed concrete jungle, but we couldn't wait! Challenges felt like part of the adventure, we faced life in a 1000 square feet apartment with gusto, we loved embracing the simplicity that came with small space living. Our children were all sharing one bedroom and I'd homeschool them around our kitchen table, that is I kid you not, mere inches away from my front door as it swings open. I found it somehow charming that my garbage was to be sent down a shoot in my hallway to a mystery incinerator and that to get fresh air one must first ride an elevator and greet the doorman on the way to the sidewalk. Without owning a car we'd walk everywhere: to church, the grocery store, the movies, play dates, and the park. When I'd be feeling wild we'd hop on the subway. Figuring out how to live day to day felt like the adventure for nearly a year and kept us busy! Before long though, I just felt tired.
About two years in I began to crash. Slowly, discontent grew, and I began to long for my old life. I wanted my minivan, my house in the mountains, my family close by and all the ease of a life I knew how to control. I was ready for the adventure to end, ready to get back to regular life.
The New York of my imagination was not the New York of my everyday.
In my everyday felt foreign and uncomfortable. I questioned why I was raising my children in a place that felt nothing like the home we'd left, the home we'd loved, the home waiting for them every summer and Christmas with grandparents and cousins surrounding them. My husband's job continued to be a great gift to us and one that he adored, but I couldn't stop shaking my own quick judgement, my lust for adventure that had not considered the cost of this move and I wished I could take it back. Everywhere I looked, I began to see the gray and soot of the city , it lacked color and seemed over-run by litter and grime. Our apartment began to feel even smaller, and my own bleak attitude only multiplied its gloomy atmosphere. I longed for home.
Here's where I misplaced my desire though: I longed for a place and a history that was tangible to me, that I could describe to you by the landscape and the people and the scent in the air. We all long for places in our past that hold meaning and memories, and we all experience sadness when we have to leave them behind. When we have tasted something so sweet, experienced love and beauty and seen a shadow of heaven in the process, there is a pain when we have to leave it. What God showed me in the strangeness of New York was that I had a deeper longing, not for my own hometown or a place I held dear, but that my longing for those sweet places were guideposts to show me my truest longing for him.
What I really longed for was to find my home in Christ alone.
It didn't happen instantly, but little by little, Jesus is leading me by faith and I am learning what it looks like to abide in Christ in all circumstances, in all cities, among all people. That's why I write, because I know that like me, so many of us are striving to find rest in our seasons of motherhood. I know how quickly it takes to go from a place of expectation to despair and how important it is to remind one another of our Great Hope- to gather it and sing of it daily together. All the glimmers of beauty lead us to One who is Beautiful, and so I drink them in and gather them like feathers and share them with you.
I have found my home in New York because I have never needed to rely and depend on Jesus so desperately anywhere else.
I'm free to see the wonder of this place anew because of the One who led me here, and leads me still, to find my home in him. May you find your heart in Him today too, sweet mamas.
Blessings,
Kristen
This post is a part of our “Who We Are” Series. For all posts visit,
“Who We Are: The Stories Behind TBM Writers”
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