"Are they ready for the journey? Certainly we should stay until it is safe for them to go?" Kembr pressed. Ayden spoke in a calming tone, "It is not the place but the presence that upholds them. This is their only certainty." (Erwin McManus, "Seizing your Divine Moment")

packing a suitcase today, heading to pittsburgh for the first of this year's round of weddings. it's crazy to think that my own wedding is getting closer, waiting for me just one year from july. it's a long wait, but i'm happy about it. i need it. i love being engaged, probably because it's exactly where i need to be right now. moving toward married, but definately not married yet. i have never been as sure of anything as i am sure of david, but i am also sure that there are some parts of me that need to grow up a little bit yet before i take any sort of vows. it's happening, slowly and quietly and with a steadyness that makes both of us excited about how good we're going to be together, when we can live in the same city, in the same room. however, i've been an in-de-pen-dent woman. i've had my own bank account since i was 15, when i got my first job. i've been calling my own shots for a while now. it'll be different to have someone to come home to, someone to run purchases by, someone to consult on big things, someone who is such a good balance for me that he won't always agree with me. i'm working on not being so selfish, on being quicker to compromise for the sake of relationship, being swift to lay down my pride when i'm wrong and don't want to deal with it.

so i'm heading to pittsburgh, where i'll be living once i'm married. pittsburgh, which in my mind is the land of gray skies and cold rain, where the bridges were the victim of a fully un-artistic eye and are painted manilla yellow. pittsburgh is hundreds of miles from any ocean, but my fiancee's ministry and job is there, and i love him, and so i'm going. i go back and forth with it, though - will i love it? hate it? be terribly lonely? wish i hadn't backed down on moving out there? i can't know till i do it, but i am realizing that i'm leaving behind all of my friends here, leaving a whole year before we graduate. they're planning on all living together this coming year, in a big house with 5 bedrooms...and i'm not going in on it, because i'll be moving. sigh. but the truth is that it is not the place but the presence that makes a place welcoming, that makes it a home. God is leading me there, and that is my only certainty anyway. i am a future resident of pittsburgh, PA.

i am about to fall in love with a new city.