Six Years

I will look back on this and smile because it was life and I decided to live it.

-unknown

I came across this quote this morning and smiled. Today I celebrate six years in this crazy city.

No matter what happens in the future, I know that I will look on these last six years and smile, and probably go further than that and cry with joy, because I have lived here more than I have any other place.

A few things have stayed the same, most notably my driver’s license still claims Texas as does my car, but so many things have changed.

I’ve lived in five homes in six years, which sounds like a ton; but I lived in three different places within my first 9 months in the city, finally settling on Capitol Hill where I stayed in one house for almost four years. A year stint in my second home on the hill was ended due to the Lord’s call to homeownership. In just two months, I will have owned my house for a year. I’m not the nomad that I once was. Roots are a good thing and I am so thankful to have them.

While I remain on Capitol Hill, I’ve been incredibly blessed to move through the ranks – from an intern to a legislative director. And though it was with sadness that I left the Texas delegation, I have been warmly welcomed by the Midwest folks. I have learned a lot in these six years up here. Seen power given and taken away. I’ve written language that has gotten passed by the House of Representatives and hope to get something signed into law this year. I’m no longer naïve to a lot of the corruption, brokenness, cruelty, and just ugliness that as sinners we are prone to. I’m not sure if the political realm amplifies that, but I can no longer hide my head in the sand and think we are mostly good people. We are people in desperate need of a Savior! But in the very same breath, I have seen such beauty in these broken souls, the glimpses of who each of us were meant to be, and that is a cause for hope.

I’ve seen much more of the world since coming to DC. In just a few short weeks, I will have been to five of the seven continents. Hopefully I can mark off Australia and Antarctica sooner rather than later as well. And I have gotten to travel our country, with dear friends from Boston to Bloomington, and yet am still known by many of my friends’ parents. And of course there are always those who loved me enough from Texas to send me here to learn to fly. My limited world view has been stretched.

But the constant of these six years has been my community. When Kara invited me to Rez, I had no idea what phenomenal blessings the Lord had in store. They haven’t always been easy; in fact, some of the hardest moments of my entire life have happened in the context of this community. I have never wept or laughed like I have here. I’ve hit rock bottom. Wallowed in the mire, but I have lived in the moments that whisper of what Eden was and what the new city one day will be. I am so thankful for a community that has walked through it all with me. People who have stood in the gap for me. Believed when I couldn’t and wouldn’t. Who have cheered me on as a I took on crazy endeavors like marathons and triathlons and shown up at countless meals to sit around my table just because. I have been welcomed into homes when I’m lonely, been called out on my crap because they love me too much to let me stay in it.

Today, I joyfully enter into my seventh year of living in Washington, DC utterly incapable of knowing what will happen but perfectly content to walk with a God who does know and care and that I can trust.

Now to Him who is able to do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine according to the power at work within us. (Ephesians 3:20)