there is something here.

For families, biological or not.

For the ties that hold us together.  For life.  For having people in it with you.  For finding ways to make peace with those who aren't.  And for grace.
That's what I'm thankful for today.
---

I'm a runner.

I run from things I don't like, from situations I don't know how to handle, from people I'm bad at loving.  There's a reason why I like far away missions trips, visiting out of state friends, and just going.  There's a reason why I can have a bag packed within 20 minutes flat and not look back.

I'm a runner.  And it has made a lot of messes.  I've made a lot of messes.

Thankfully for me, God loves messy people.  I am the least deserving of His grace, but He offers it to me just the same.  But I've encountered a problem with grace and God.  The thing is-

God is not a runner.

He isn't afraid or overwhelmed by things, and He definitely isn't bad at loving people.  If I'm going to follow Him and love Him and claim to know Him, that means I can't run anymore, either.  It means that I have to face things.  A few months ago, I felt Him tugging at me.  Stop running.  There is something here.


There is something here; I know it's true.  There are things here that I don't know how to face, and there are people here I'm bad at loving.  This is my family and this is how things work.  That's it, God.  That's all.  There's nothing else here.

Even in that, I knew I needed to stop running.  So I prayed my heart out and decided not to move.  And you know what: everything caught up to me, and it was incredibly hard.  There were awkward conversations and dragging time and shut doors and heaviness that comes from relationships tied together with tired familiarity.  But I stayed because God was right.  He is right. There is something here, and it's not just all my inadequacies.

It's grace that brings change.  It's kindness that brings repentance.  It's small and slow and hard to grow but it's here, with the tiny roots of something strong.

It's hard conversations that eventually turn light.  It's everything catching up to me and somehow still being okay.  Because as much as I will always love far away missions trips, there's something happening right in my backyard, right in my own family.  And the only thing that scares me more than not running is missing it.

There is something here.

I think it might be healing.