I really don't want

to move.

I'm not excited about it at all. I can buy all the cute furniture. I can get all sorts of decorating ideas. I can think about all the new types of freedom I'll acquire. Being able to go to any church I want. Staying out without having to call. Washing dishes on my own time schedule.

But it doesn't mask the fact that I'm so acutely sad to leave my mother. I can't imagine not seeing her face every day. I can't imagine not being there for her when things are difficult or when she wants to share a funny story.

Yes, I'm not moving to Uzbekistan and yet I feel an ocean between her and I. I see it in her eyes each time she sits next to me now and says, "You'll still come visit right?" It was always me and her. Since I was born. We were a team, struggling, surviving, learning from one another. She was my angel. The one good thing about me I used to say.

And then I fell in love with Someone else. And He said, I love you but I don't need you. I desperately want you without condition. And I got confused. My mother's love is all I've known. But now He is asking me to give her up. Asking me to trust in His love alone.

God has to come in between each relationship.

And this should be easy. But it's really not. There is a space in my soul that only my mother occupies. But when you say, "I want to be all of Yours," something snaps. Floodgates open up washing away the pattern of things.

God says I want to enter that space, increase it and occupy it. For your sake, for her sake and for your father's sake. All for my glory. So that your joy may be made complete.

I watch him wash the dishes, something he never did before. He buys me prunes, says it's in the bottom shelf of the fridge. Trying so hard to be the provider. But even in the midst of these small but important treasures, God is calling me out. Separating me out.

It's a pain unlike I've ever experienced. It's emptying, lonely, terrifying. I dread that apartment. I dread what it represents. And yet all God says is, Come home to me. Let me serve you. Let me fill you. Let me be your mother, your father, your all.

So I will go. I will pack up my things and journey into that unknown place. I will brave the inevitable loneliness, the doubt, the fear of what will occur at 2832 while I reside at 3333. I will brave the accusations, the pleas, the begging, the misunderstanding. I will endure it all for You. For the ultimate fulfillment of your promises to me, to them, for us, for the world.

I am walking on water and each day I almost drown. And each day you remind me when I ask Who I am?

You say, "I am with you."

So here we go. I've given up my dreams, my love life, my friendships and now finally the most important people in my life. You have it all. There is no turning back now.

Worship is my sacrifice

How can I not praise You?

How can that not be my only job really?

You are infinitely worthy of praise

You never give up on me. Never.

You are always willing to remind me.

You put up with my need to control, my need to be busy all the time

And then when I've driven myself into a hole, you are patient enough to dig me out of it.

You want the very very very best for me. Why? I don't deserve it. I don't deserve Your best or Your willingness to train me to receive it and wait for it.

And yet each day You write me a love song. And You sing its chorus to me when I look at the sky. You sing a verse when I clean a patient. You sing its second verse when I look into my mother's eyes and tell her I'm not her answer.

I don't deserve your song. And I drown it out. Fill my ears with the opinions of others. Fill my ears with the glorification of being busy, of being occupied all the time.

But You wait patiently. Because then you hum it until I'm ready to listen. But sometimes You belt it, You scream it because I need rescuing.

How can I not constantly praise You? When You are so for me. Even when things come crashing down, my darkness is light to You.

You know me. Love is merely the skin of knowing they say. And You know the hairs on my head, You knew me in my mother's womb. It really is too lofty for me to understand this.

Sometimes this knowing is too unbelievable to me so I reduce it. I box it up. Categorize to more manageable levels. But You shatter it each time. Each time You remind me of a critical lab to draw at work that slipped my mind. Each time I look into the eyes of a trusted friend and see You shining through whether that friend realizes it or not. Each time I cry out from loneliness or defeat. Each time I hold a hand of a patient. When I google AMC. When I go to Mexico and am given the chance to diagnose and prescribe without human training.

I love You. I love You so much it scares me what I'm willing to give up for You. But then I realize that even that willingness and even my love for You comes from You.

You really are the best thing about me. You really are the one and only reason I breathe.