keep your eyes open.
The day before I moved to Williston I realized I had forgotten to say goodbye. (Read: avoided at all costs).
I sent out a few texts and within an hour, 9 of my closest friends showed up at my door (a major benefit of camp friends – we thrive on spontaneity). We played a few board games and reached a natural lull at about 11. My friend Alex asked if anyone would want to go downstairs and worship together. One by one we filed to the basement and I grabbed my guitar out of my packed Mazda.
For the next four hours we prayed, sang, and shared. We had stumbled upon authentic community (koinonia) and time practically stood still. We were this odd group of misfits that would rather pray than party on a Friday night. We never gossiped about each other because we loved one another and were fighting our brokenness shoulder to shoulder. I looked around at our group and felt an inner anguish as I silently cried out, “Why me?”
Why do I have to leave? Why do they get to keep this while I move to a land of strangers? I was living the kind of community I’d always dreamed of and God was asking me to leave. I had fought so hard to get here – so much vulnerability, so much time, so much prayer. I didn’t want to start from scratch. (In a land rumored to have no women, no less).
Yet the grace of God got me into my car for the 500-some mile journey the next morning. I spent the next several months comparing every person I met to my friends back home – and they never measured up. I counted down the days until my next trip home – and I spent thousands of dollars trying to live in two cities. In just a few short years I’d be able to move back home and resume the perfect life I left behind (with season tickets to Target Field, of course).
Yet as time progressed, God called me to surrender that life. Not because it wasn’t real or that it didn’t change me – but because it was time to move on to the next thing. I was missing out on the next dream because I had glued my feet in Minneapolis.
This fall I challenged myself to go from September-December without going home. I needed to start using my days off to build community here. I made myself go to local friends with my struggles and not quickly dispatch a phone call across the border. I needed to question if working 60 hours a week was really God’s best for me. It was time to pick a church and invest in it.
It was time to stop seeing Williston for what I could get out of it, and start praying about what I could put in.
I stopped expecting Williston to be Minneapolis, and I discovered an incredible community of fellow imports fighting the same nostalgic battle. People just like me that God called to leave everything and move to the oil patch. (Many of whom understand the pain of not having access to Chipotle). I’m learning that gospel is everywhere, and the brotherhood of Christ is exclusive to no zip code.
It’s funny as I approach my goal of being debt-free (less than 50 days people!), I’ve never been more sure I’m supposed to be in Williston. I have made some of the most intimate friends from all parts of the country. I live in an incredible house with two women who will change the world. I’m part of a church that is so on mission for Christ. And my small group is literally going to flip this city on its head and make disciples by the dozen.
Last night we met to study the Word together and decided we need to stop talking about changing the city and start praying and doing. We brainstormed where we can start and came up with a few tangible (weird) ideas to proclaim the Kingdom and share our love with the lost. (Ironically, I was kicking myself because I’m going to Minnesota this weekend and I’m going to miss some of it.)
We were saying goodbye to two of our crew last night – one headed to work in Yellowstone for the summer and the other to Dallas to work at their local mission. As we prayed for them (and armed them with the new Needtobreathe CD for their travels), I couldn’t help but think: “I’m so glad it’s not me.”
I’m living in the last place I wanted to go, and now I can’t imagine how painful it would be to leave. I was laying awake until 5 this morning dreaming about what’s going to happen in the 58801, and I so badly want to be a part of it. I’m so thankful to serve a God who can see miles when my eyes are wide shut.
One of my favorite songs is from Needtobreathe’s album The Reckoning. It talks about “leaving home, letting go, and making it to the great unknown.” It’s amazing what we can see when we keep our eyes open. Here’s a link to the song – have a listen and be encouraged.
Reading Rachel 