SIT & STAY

If you had asked me when I was 20 if I would still be living in the same little town at the age of 40, I would have laughed. The kind of laugh where you are bent double and your eyes stream tears and you can hardly breathe.

After I wiped my tears off my face and gained control of myself, I'd have told you that wasn't in my plans. My plans were to go, to see, to do. I wanted to have grand adventures, preferably while paddling down the Amazon, bright birds streaking overhead and monkeys chattering in the trees.

As someone who is endlessly curious (nosy seems so negative, doesn't it?), I could gladly pack my bags and hit the road to sights yet unseen, friends not yet met and experiences just waiting to be explored, without much hesitation.

But you know what they say about the best laid plans don't you?

Instead, God asked me to sit and stay. Most of the time I'm content. I can see the blessings of being in a place where you know and are known, the blessing of extended family and the blessing of my boys having close ties with their grandparents and the community.

But other times - times like right now for example - I itch to wander and explore.

Today, I don't want to sit and stay. No, I want to go. I want to visit Italy and see where my grandmother's people come from. I want to poke into dusty places where feet walked hundreds of years ago. I want to hike up a mountain with the delicious thrill of knowing that I could run into a bear or a mountain lion at any moment.

Sometimes, I don't know why God has asked my wanderer's soul to sit and stay when I want to go and see, but I know He has a plan and a purpose. There are things I can't learn if I don't stay here. There are lessons that only come when I sink my roots deeply into this particular soil.

While I still yearn to go and see, I've found that the biggest adventure, the best "experience" is God Himself. Any adventure I have apart from Him is not really worth having.

I Don't Want to Go by Avalon
You changed my world
When You came to me
You drove a passion
In my soul down deep
Lord, to follow You in everything

I don't want to go somewhere
If I know that You're not there
'Cause I know that me without You is a lie
And I don't want to walk that road
Be a million miles from home
'Cause my heart needs to be where You are
So I don't want to go

So come whatever
I'll stick with You
I'll walk, You'll lead me
Call me crazy or a fool
For forever I promise you that

[Chorus]
Without Your touch
Without Your love
Filling me like an ocean
For Your grace is enough

Enough for me
To never want to go somewhere
If I know that You're not there

~ Blessings, Bronte