"My Life"

In my first few days away from Nashville, I've been settled, comfortable, even excited. It's odd to feel and even say those emotions out loud. I have a hinge of guilt in saying that I'm not bitterly sad. I mean, I've lived in Nashville for 7 years and had my life here. All that I ever wanted, all that I ever desired. And now I'm in the process of my drive back to my old/new home in Indiana.

The list of reasons in my head for why I should be more sad should be enough to have changed my demeanor already, or at least put me in an emotional "funk" for the week/s leading up to my departure. Here's a few, just for my sake of writing them down:

• Nashville was my first move away from home. I left my little town of Warsaw, Indiana in 2005 to come to college in another little Christian university.
• During college, I found my niche. I majored in radio communications and became successful in getting an on-air radio shift where I continued to grow and create a one-of-a-kind radio show.
• Because of my radio career, I found Rocketown, a non-profit youth ministry that has a music venue, indoor skatepark, after-school programs, and a coffee bar. They did ministry in the way I always thought the church should've done it...go where the people are and start a friendship. 
• Graduated college in 2009 with the best friends I would've never reached out to on my own. I'm so thankful for their acceptance of me. 
• I ended my radio and got a job at Rocketown where I worked for 4 years. It was my life. The staff and kids were my life. I found another calling.
• Then I made one of the best decisions of my life: I went to the Anchor School of Ministry in January 2011. Everything I knew about myself, God, religion, and people were healthily broken down and reconstructed in the mindset of Christ, giving myself a secure foundation. What a journey, and it is just the beginning.

My friends, my church, my college, my career, my calling, my life was all in Nashville. I don't feel like I've left it. They will always be there and my memories will always be with me. It will mean just as much to me in the future as it does now. But my existence isn't based on those things. I can have all of that over again. I'm not sad because I'm following God. He is directing me from what I called my life and has already been working on the transition to leave Nashville. This has always been His plan. Now I have the privilege of following it. My life is not mine. My life is His and my life isn't because of the people who are in it, the place I live, or what I experience. My life is with God and defined by God. That's what I'm learning.

I've always experienced my friends leaving Nashville. My bestest friends would always move away, onto greater and better things for themselves. I didn't think it'd happen for me like this. But it is, and all I can do is smile.