nesting.

Today, I got up and didn't have to go to work. I slept in all the way to 7:37. It rocked. Then my mom and I had mother-daughter time. We started by getting some antibiotics for my sinus infection (woo hoo!), then proceeded to purchase some non-jean pants so that I can wear something other than skirts and dresses to work. We then stopped at Dean and Deluca, because it's somewhat of a tradition for us on special mornings or afternoons.

One of the most delightful parts of my day though, was realizing that I'm not going anywhere. In fact, I'm planning on being in this city, near this house, for at least another year. Yep. That's twelve months within the same area code. In the same (2) state(s). I asked my mom what it was like to live in the same building for a continuous amount of time. She said it still feels like she's adjusting to things all the time and lives with a family in transition.

Every August for the past four years, my church takes a weekend trip away. We go on pilgrimage to a youth camp. We stay in cabins and tents (cheaper), eat together, pray together, sit in silence together, and play, play play. Swimming pool, lake, games, walks. It's glorious. This year, on Sunday, a woman aptly named Charity shared that she was in transition and had been for about a year. She said that when she had shared this with someone they had promptly apologized, "I'm so sorry." And Charity wanted to know why. Why are we sorry? She said that transition is perhaps life's truest state. Think about it. How often have you felt like your life was stable? Like, really stable. Maybe in retrospect, but in the moment, did it feel stable?

I had a conversation last summer about stability with my dear friend Heather. We called it "being settled." It was before I went to Spain and I was telling her about how I was excited for Spain, yet a little more apprehensive than I'd hoped to be. I had, for the first time in life, experienced this desire to be settled and knew that Spain wouldn't be a very settling place. She felt it too. As we were talking, we realized slowly that "settled" is a condition of the heart more than a condition of residence in one geographical location.

So perhaps settled and stabilized can mean more than simply living in one place. I want to be present to my life and to dwell in my relationships now, in this moment. In whatever unfinished condition I find myself, my room, my life, I want to accept it and see the beauty in it now.

I pray...that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, and being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (ephesians 3)