As the great philosopher Britney Spears once said, “Whoops, I did it again.” Or more precisely, we did it again. After two and a half wonderful years in Hillsdale County Michigan, I sit here writing while surrounded by the chaos of a house in flux. Some of the chaos is the kids’ preparing to move out on their own or head to college. While we are sad to have this, likely, final season of all the OG Spiegels under one roof coming to end, we are thrilled to see them moving on to new adventures.
But they aren’t the only ones heading for parts unknown. Jim and I too will be packing up and moving on and I must admit my heart is heavy with the thought of it. It isn’t just the dread of packing and unpacking a lifetime of possessions or choosing a new home, attending a new church, or deciding where to do our weekly grocery shopping. Don’t even get me started on figuring out what gas station carries my favorite beverages and how I can maximize their loyalty 
reward program. Nor is my grief isolated to the thought of saying goodbye to friends, some of whom it feels like I have waited a lifetime to know. It is all these things and so much more, something deeper that keeps crying out “This is not how it is supposed to be. Human lives aren’t meant for uprooting.”
I fully admit to being a creature of habit. I order the same favorites from my faithful favorite menus. I love to wear my favorite clothes into oblivion and re-watch my favorite films and re-read my favorite books. I value predictability over novelty, comfort over the unknown. If Forrest Gump is right and life is a box of chocolates, I prefer the box containing only one variety, please and thank you.
This afternoon, as I took a break from our pre-photo shoot house cleaning and decluttering session, I mustered up the energy for half-formed prayers of supplication, asking God “Why? Why is this necessary? Why can’t we stay?” And in that entirely predictable God-way, He answered by holding up a mirror to my heart and asking me to respond to my own question. What I saw there made clear the answer. I want things to be predictable because I want to be in control…which, needless to say, I am not. The very thing I want to cling to so badly, the illusion of control, is the thing I desperately need to let go, because it isn’t real. I may feel like I am clinging to reality, but really I’m grasping at thin air.
I’m like a passenger in a self-driving car whose destination has already been punched, but I insist on white-knuckling an imaginary steering wheel, pretending I’m the one driving and then banging my head against the dash when the car fails to respond to my commands. When life doesn’t go according to my plans, it isn’t because my GPS is malfunctioning. I am the problem, and God is gently but firmly reminding me that I’m not even the co-pilot in this scenario.
As I sat throwing an itty-bitty pity committee for myself today, a voice rose above the whining violin in my heart to sing a different song. This song says that loving anything above my Creator isn’t just wrong, it’s harmful. I can pretend it would be better for me to get what I want, but if what I want isn’t Him, then it’s not only not better, it’s the worst. By taking it away, God is revealing an idol, an area of wrongful worship and giving me the chance to lay it down and walk away.
But He isn’t asking me to walk away into the wilderness, into nothing. He isn’t calling me into a land of want, in the sense of deficiency. He is calling me to a land of wanting in the sense of desiring. Desiring the ultimate Good. He wants me to walk away from a place of want, of deficiency of Him in order to pursue wanting Him. And that is what I need even if it isn’t always what I want.
The Israelites walked away from Egypt, a place of great want in which they were slaves. They walked into what looked like a desert but in reality it was a path to the promised land, the land in which God dwelt, a land of plenty in which He would provide all they needed and more. Their short-sighted fallen hearts couldn’t help but look back, like Lot’s wife, longing for the familiar routine of enslavement.
I would love to laugh at them but I can’t. I’m too busy looking over my own shoulder with regret. As I sigh for what I want, I hear the voice of the One I need. And deep down I know, like David, He will turn “my wailing into dancing” and He will “clothe me with joy,” so my heart will sing His praises and not be silent even on the road to who knows where. Because that’s the road that will lead me to the thing I want and need, above all else. I just have to close my eyes, stop trying to navigate the way and tell myself “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”
Prolific, w/ honesty,thx