past the infatuation phase.

I have never been a big fan of Christian music, however the first "real" concert that I ever attended was Steven Curtis Chapman...and I am not ashamed at all to admit that I sang "Saddle Up Them Horses" at the top of my lungs, and the boom from my very bass voice echoed all over "The Palace of Auburn Hills".  I didn't listen to Shine when I attended Olivet, I didn't know what AIR fm was until a couple of years ago, and I know more hymns than "christian pop'' songs.  My junior year of college I made a christian music mixed CD, and I recently found it and transferred the songs on to my I-Pod.  I am not sure what came over me today, but on my way to the dentist I decided to listen to Jesus Jams.  I flipped through the album list until I had reached the J's and clicked shuffle, the first song that came on was "I will Rest in You" by Jaci Velasquez.  Velasquez is like the Michelle Branch/Vanessa Carlton of the Christian genre.  

Every night I lay down to rest, but I have yet to sleep through one night and wake up feeling well rested since I moved to Nashville.  I nap, and when I awake I wish that the sleep never ended.  And some how through disturbed sleep, and naps that never seem long enough, my slumber leaves me very unrested.    

I have found myself in a place of tranquil melancholy stage in life.  I am going and coming all at the same time.  I am coming to Nashville to study and be, but only to leave and become.  I am uncertain where I will go to become what it is that I am being led to be, but I have decided that I will rest in the Lord.  I will not lean on my own understanding, but his.  I will not make my own plans, but know that he has plans to prosper me.  To pretend that it is easy to follow path that is not clear would be a lie.  It is exceptionally difficult.

I have lived in Nashville for almost three months now and I don't have curtains, candles, or a kitchen table.  To be honest, I have no desire to have any of those things because I know that one year from January I will be leaving.  Nashville is not really home but more of an extended vacation.  My parents house is exactly that...their home and not mine.  Watervliet was always temporary.  Detroit was home until my family left and then it was a house, but not my home.  I tried to make my apartment homey, but I think that I failed.  I think that I wanted to fail, deep down inside, I didn't really ever want Nashville to be home.  

I am not sure what it is but I have the gypsy gene I am afraid.  I will continue to travel through this purgatory like stage of life until a find a home.  I suppose that is what we all do to some extent travel on the journey until we can settle, I don't know that I will ever settle.  

I recently told my mom that I didn't want to wake up at thirty with a mortgage, three kids, and find myself sitting behind a desk from nine to five.  My mom looked at me rather perturbed, because she had sacrificed her youth for my siblings and I...and then in a very humble voice said, but you don't want to wake up at forty and realized that you lived adventurous but had no one to share it with...I think that my mom is right.  I want to see action, passion, and the raw heart of people and for some reason I don't think that I can find that in the suburbs of life.  However, I have come to realize that the city doesn't have much more to offer than the 'burbs that I am so afraid of getting acclimated with.  

Cities are like boyfriends.  They are all fun at first, but after the infatuation wears off there is really nothing left but a lot of vacant lots and some entertaining coffee shops that after a while seem boring as well.  The place, much like the person, that you used to find rest in becomes one more thing to check off of your to do list, the conversations fade to predictable, and nothing is novel anymore...slowly but surely you detach and then just like a relationship gone sour, you move out and on with life.

I am not sure what it is about the nomadic lifestyle that is so appealing to me, but there is also something so entrancing about the unchanging.  I find a warm, quiet peace in the unchanging...I suppose that is because our God is unchanging.  It is my prayer that God will take me back, constantly his eyes will watch over me.  I want to be in the place that I once knew falling into the bed of faith prepared for me, and there I will find rest.

Jaci Velasquez may not be able to play a piano while sliding through the streets of the big city, but she sure can make me feel at home in a place that is so transitional.