regret

This has been a challenging four years. A lot has happened in my time in Arizona… a great deal of joy and laughter. Even more growth and stretching. And many tears.

Tonight, for the first time, I actually heard a small voice inside me say, “I regret coming here.”

And right now isn’t even the worst of times I’ve had here.

So I had to pause.

(My version of pausing is to write. Well, first I cleaned and organized my office. Then I sat down to write. Because I don’t know how I feel until I write it.)

I panicked as soon as those words entered my mind, because I don’t know if they are real. True. Or the enemy working against me.

There is something keeping me here. It’s a strong and powerful force. It would have to be to keep me tethered to a place so far outside my comfort zone. So far away from my family. So far away from what I consider home.

But it’s home here, too.

It happened when I fell in love.

With this season.

“But then I come down here… and this fits, too.”

I am just waiting for the thing that is keeping me here to reveal itself fully. I don’t mind having my faith strengthened, but I’m not sure how much longer my heart can take it. (It was pretty fragile to begin with.) There is much joy and much sorrow here.  I’m trying so hard for the joy to overcome my sorrow because of this tether.

I think this tether has a label. Not a name, exactly. Because it’s not that powerful. But it has a label.

Hope.

I will go so far as to say that if one particular thing changed, a decision would be made. And interestingly, it has nothing to do with my call. This is a new revelation for me and it is why I am thinking about regret and love and hope and tethered ropes.

Do I love you? Oh I do. I’m going to ‘til I’m gone. But if you think that I can stay in this same old, same old way. Well, I don’t. I don’t.