Replanting Myself

I've had my other blog for almost a decade. I started it when we moved to North Carolina, and I was struggling so hard to find my place in the world, as a Christian, as a wife, a mom, a person.

I moved from the Chicago area to a relatively conservative part of North Carolina. I discovered a deeper relationship with God here, and learned a whole lot about myself. But I also wanted so badly to fit in with other people that I changed a big part of myself.

While my transformation from reckless twentysomething year old to a more modest wife and mother was absolutely necessary, I think that I went too far.

God never meant for my free spirit to be confined by the ideas of other people. When I made the decision to stop dressing a certain way, the decision was mine to make. And then I welcomed other people in that decision, and into my relationship with God. That was a mistake, and it's a mistake I've since learned from.

The last year of my life, I struggled to get back to writing my thoughts down on my blog and it never felt quite right because I no longer felt like I belonged. On my own blog.

So, much like God replanted me here in the mountains almost a decade ago, I'm replanting myself in a new space.

A few months after my Dad died, I had a dream about him. I was sitting in a lawn chair in the garden space at work and he was walking toward me. He got close to my lawn chair and looked me in the eye.
He leaned down and said, "You have to come back."

Come back where? To Illinois? To Wisconsin?

No.

To God. To myself.

So, here I am.

As you were.