Missing all I know

The last thing I expected to do was cry for having to leave home this Christmas. I didn't want to go, and I only did because the Lord told me to. It's a wonderful thing I went, for several reasons, but one particular, pleasant surprise was having time to reflect on my life and the beauties I adored growing up there. I realized that although I've been living in the city for five years now, my heart has always belonged to the country.

I believe “the city” as I refer to it (anything without fields and animals) can poison a true country-girl, so much that she doesn’t appreciate cow manure when she smells it. But thankfully, I’ve managed to remain a loyal cowgirl. In the process, I've realized that I'm fashioned for experiencing freedom in the hills where horses and cows roam, pigs oink, turkeys call, and deer drink water in my backyard.

While I understand my need to be here, I can’t help but be pulled back into the dreams that were once lifted up over the plains of Pennsylvania. The days when I sipped ice cold lemonade while laying in the grass with a journal set the stage just right for dreaming. There really is nothing like breathing unpolluted air while you gaze dreamingly into the wilderness. I used to do it for hours, and I miss it.

All of this dreaming has baptized me with nostalgia. I want to ride horses again. I want to take walks in the woods. I want to drive on old, dirt roads with the windows down and feel my hair blowing in my face. I want to drive big trucks in the enormous mud puddles and get dirty. I want to camp out. I want to hang out with friends around firepits. I want to wear holey jeans, tank-tops and old gym shoes again. I want to run barefoot in my backyard and through cornfields. I want to run around and dance in farm fields as a woman grateful for the beauties of life.

I could have stayed and been a farmer all my life, and I might have learned to be completely content with that, but God had a different plan. The hardest thing about learning how to accept it was giving up country music. If I listened to it my heart would ache to be back home and I’d lose vision of the divine call on my life. It’s been about five years since I listened to country music, and I recently purchased a few albums that I have not been able to turn off. I can't help but love the twang sound, the crazy dancing, the flannel, cowboy hats, and “down-in-the-dirt”, snazzy cowboy boots, and even the “I will totally wipe you out of this round of line dancing” attitudes, but I wish I could describe the desperation my heart feels to just stand on a mountain, glance over the hills and see the vibrancy of water reflected tree-tops. I’m dripping with anticipation.

I guess I’m trying to understand the balance between what I love and what I love about what I’m called to do. I love everything about living in the country, but I’m called to infect the media with hope. I'm thrilled about that, but the place crying out for it the most seems to be the city. And I believe the reason I don’t entirely hate the city is because I may be working in it.

The tug in my heart comes when I truly desire to experience creation in the country, but choose to lovingly obey my Father. My mind says there’s gotta be some way I can do both. There’s gotta be some way I can effectively reach people through media in the city, but keep my country roots. I suppose it could be just as easy as living in the country and working in the city, but how does a person born to coast in pick-up trucks on dirt roads and live with beautiful, 4-legged creatures survive in a world polluted with narrow-minded thinking, ungratefulness, and materialism? When I figure it out I’ll let ya’ll know. In the mean time, I’ll be dreaming of the glorious land my Father has created for me to enjoy.