We’re off to a fantastic start.
Much speedier than it’s ever happened before. God said Certainty, so we’re doing Certainty.
The backstory…
I have moved every two years since moving to Hawaii. Moved here in 2016. Moved to the house in 2018. Moved to faculty housing in 2020. Moved to my place in 2022. And each of these moves have been challenging in their own right. Some more stressful than others; some more painful than others. They’ve never been easy.
So already I’m left with a sour taste in my mouth.
For starters, I’m the most unnecessarily sentimental person on the planet. Little slips of paper and spaces where memories were made hold deep meaning in my heart. I cry and a piece of me breaks off every time I have to say goodbye. Goodbye house where I cooked many pastas. Goodbye apartment where we went all the ways. Goodbye this and that and this thing and that part of my life.
Now couple that with the absurd cost of living in Hawaii, the outdated quality of rentals available, and the stress of packing up my closet, and I’m a mess. An emotional, worried, panicked mess.
But thankfully I have an apartment I love. An apartment that was everything I prayed for at the time. An apartment with AC where I don’t have to pay utilities. Thankfully everything is great and splendid and life doesn’t have to change or get complicated.
Or so I thought.
Because two days into the year- two days into Certainty, I was told I needed to move out.
Well here comes the flood of fear and stress and panic and worry.
How am I going to do this again?
After calling everyone and crying, I told myself I wasn’t going to think about it. Not right now. Not this week. I’m going to act like it’s not happening. I’m going to pretend it doesn’t exist. At least until the end of the week. I’m going to give myself a few days to live in a perfect, unharmed world until I have to accept that this is my reality.
As much as I wanted to keep crying, I didn’t. Well actually I did.
In that moment, there was only one thing I could do. I turned the radio on, scrolled to find my worship playlist, and I clicked whatever song was there as I kept my eyes on the road and drove to work. Do It Again played first.
Your promise still standsGreat is Your faithfulness, faithfulnessI’m still in Your handsThis is my confidenceYou’ve never failed me yet
Every two years, God does it again. Honestly, every day He does it again. Whenever I’ve been put in this situation, He’s taken care of me. I’ve yet to be homeless although sometimes it felt like I was coming close. I didn’t cry out of panic, I cried because I knew that certainly God would do it again. And so I didn’t need to fear or stress or panic or worry.
A few hours had passed. I taught two workout classes, and I’m finally catching up on my text messages. My landlord’s sister-in-law texted me. She said I could live in her downstairs rental unit. She said she’d lower the rent to be the same as what I’m paying now. She said the square footage is almost double what I’m in now. She said it’ll be available when I need it.
If you Google “certainty” one of the suggestions that pops up is “What is the true meaning of certainty?” To which the answer says, “the state of being completely confident or having no doubt about something.”
In those six hours between getting the worst news ever and hearing the best news ever, I was certain. For the first time in my faith, I didn’t spiral out of control. I didn’t try to problem solve or fix everything on my own. In my delusion, I pretended like the problem wasn’t there and I said you know what, God’s got this taken care of.
And He did.
And as wild as this whole story sounds, even more incomprehensible is that I don’t think He’s stopping there. I think this is only the beginning.
God kicked off my year with what has been the most stressful obstacle I’ve run into over the past 8 years. There is nothing quite as panic inducing as finding out I have to move. And on the second day of the year, God put that on my plate and He also cleared it off. He made it as simple as it could ever be. I did not have to spend weeks worrying, because He made sure there was no doubt about what was going to happen next.
I need to remember this.
Because this- I feel- is only the beginning.
Everything is going to change. And when it does, am I going to freak out and try to do it on my own? Or am I going to be completely confident that God has it figured out? That God has a plan and a purpose.