Confessions of a girl whose life seems to be going backwards

It all started a few months ago. Out of no-where, all of my best gal pal’s started getting into serious relationships, getting engaged, getting married or getting pregnant. There was one moment when I looked around and realized that I was the last of my friends standing. That’s a weird, surreal moment. I started thinking about what it would be like when all my friends were married and I’m still single and my thoughts sounded something like this, “How am I going to make new friends? I don’t want to make new friends. I’m going to be all alone. Do I want to buy cats or dogs? I don’t want to travel by myself. Who’s going to travel with me?” It got a little out of control if I’m being really honest.

While my friends were off getting what they wanted, my life was seemingly falling apart. I was single as a Pringle, suffering from burn out in multiple areas of my life, feeling lonely even though there were a million people around me, and all of my living situations were falling apart.

I have this running thing with God where he ALWAYS answers my prayer requests when it comes to living situations. I’ve switched houses and roommates like 5 billion times and he’s always come through. He’s always provided the perfect roommates and the perfect homes. It’s been a really cool way of seeing his faithfulness. It’s our thing.

A couple of months ago I figured out I needed to find a new rooming situation because of marriages, etc., WAHOO! So I started looking, praying and more praying and one situation after another fell through. I couldn’t make it work. I needed to be out of my house in two days and I was leaving for Europe in two days and I still didn’t know what to do.

Luckily my parents only live like 30/40 minutes away from where I’ve been living so finally in a moment of defeat I decided I was just going to move all of my stuff home to my parents and stay there for a few weeks after I got home from my trip.

I LOVE my parents and family, seriously my favorite humans but it just seemed like such a loser move. At age 28 all of my friends are getting married, reaching career goals and reaching for their dreams and here I am moving home. I felt like all my friends were taking 1,000 steps forward and I was moving backwards. Where that lie came from I’m not sure.

After resigning to this new situation I went to a girls night. At the girls night, we were sitting around chatting when one of them chimed up to say, “I have really exciting news…I’m engaged!” And we all burst out with excitement. Another one says, “I’ve got really exciting news also…I’m pregnant!” Again, a resounding burst of excitement.

Everyone looks at me and all they get are crickets because at this moment the only news I’ve got to share is, “I’m moving home with my parents!” For my own pride sake, I wasn’t about to follow up those announcements with that statement so I let the awkward silence settle and for one of the first times in my life, I said nothing.

That girls night was my breaking point. I was genuinely stoked for my friends because of their good fortune and exciting news, but I left feeling so defeated. One of them could tell that I was hiding something and so afterward she walked me out to my car and stayed and talked to me and let me cry on her shoulder for a while. Thank God for good friends who literally let you rain on their parade.

During the course of that conversation with her, I realized I was super frustrated with God. “God, I’ve given you everything. Literally done everything you’ve ever asked of me and recklessly followed you and now you can’t even give me a good living situation?! REALLY GOD!!! That’s our thing and now you aren’t even going to give me that?! All I’ve wanted at the least is a stable living situation and that’s not even coming through.” I was royally pissed off.

A few days later I went to Europe and had one of the best trips of my life. I went to this event called David’s tent. I had no clue what I was getting myself into. 6000 people got together in the middle of no-where to worship God for 72 hours. It was just what I needed. Throughout the whole event, God was consistently showing me, “I’m still here, I’m listening to you and I’ve got the best plan in mind.” I got to meet some of my heroes in the faith and so many random people came up to me and gave me prophetic words that couldn’t have been more timely or spot on. It was the coolest thing that God took me 4,000 miles away just to get my attention and to let me know that he was still there caring for me.

When I got home I felt like a new person driving up to my parent’s house. It was the weirdest thing because as soon as I got home and while I was gone I felt God telling me, “I want this to be a season of rest, preparation (physically, mentally and emotionally). I want you focus on saving, resting and getting your health in order (aka eating super clean).”

It’s no coincidence that the only way I could accomplish all of those things was by staying with my parents for a period of time. I knew before I left that God was leading me back to my parents and that it would be disobedience if I didn’t go but I didn’t know why until halfway through my trip when he started revealing these things to me.

So here I am writing this blog post from my old childhood bedroom in my parent’s house (LOLLLL). I would be lying if I didn’t say that I felt some weirdness about admitting to it and a tiny bit of defeat. I don’t know God’s specific plan (because who the heck does?!) but I do know that it’s already been a wild ride and that I can see so evidently how his hands been on this situation. I can only imagine what he’s got in store.

Sometimes following God and being obedient looks so backward and counterculture. Honestly the more I walk with Jesus the more I’ve realized that if I don’t look like a big weirdo I probably am not doing something right. Sometimes getting us to the end goal requires us to take some weird, seemingly sideways or backward steps. But I’m convinced that listening, being attentive and having a submitted, adventurous and willing heart are all things that God’s looking for and if you have all of those things, you can’t miss His will.