I <3...Nashville??

Thanksgiving break is coming up. I leave for home on Tuesday night. But something in me doesn't want to leave...

I think I'm getting attached to Nashville.

Okay, let's come back to reality for a second here. I am so ready to see my family and sleep my real bed that isn't lofted 6 feet off the ground like this one is. I can't wait to stand in the middle of downtown Chicago and just watch people pass me by. And I'm definitely looking forward to home cooked meals...ahhh, the food I can't get anywhere else but home. :)

But, this semester more than ever, I have really begun to admit to loving this place. It's such a beautiful area and the perfect mix of a city and nature. I went out to this bike riding event for a ministry fundraiser w/ a friend one weekend and it was only about a 20-25 minute drive down my college boulevard. A turn to the left, a turn to the right and we were suddenly in this quaint little town! The minute we stepped out of the car I felt like a warm blanket was wrapped around me. To make it better, we all had to drive out to the top of this hill...

...it was love at first sight. :)

I would dare to say it was that Saturday morning that I decided to allow Nashville, it's multifarious culture and beautiful hillsides, to finally enter into my heart. What a change since I first began my life down here!

Let us move ahead so I give you a more explicit update of where my thoughts have been since the last entry. Get ready.

Why do we live?
Why?

We grow up learning things from our family and friends and through getting an education to have a profession so we can....fill in the blank.

Achieve a degree. Buy a place to live. Be successful. Enjoy a good income. Provide for our families. Live up to a standard.

What about...

Passion. Service. Contentment. Good Stewardship. Faith. Humility. Indignity.

Why must these things be put to rest when they are the things that truly make us feel alive?! I just cannot understand it! Sometimes I feel like now that I am being molded into an adult I have to follow this standard of always doing the most practical thing, the most dignified thing.

All I want is to do is love God with my life.
My whole life.

I'm not saying a Christian can't have a good education, a great job, or even a "materialistically successful" life. So long as that is the will of God for him or her everyone can see the good and ripened fruits of their labor.

But so many times, in our fear of instability, we run to what is practical, predictable, logical: "secure". We replace our trust in God to provide with longer hours and less relationship time. Money and time, it's always money and time. Which is a better investment?

Well, which one lasts the longest?

Money can sit in your bank account for a long time while the minutes and hours whisk away, but if those hours are spent on the right things the profits could be everlasting.

So this is the crossroads I have been standing at for at least two weeks:

God is the practical thing your will? Or do you call me to experience indignity?

Whatever it is, I want it. I just have not yet been able to discern what "it" is.