A One-Way Ticket
I write this from a Southwest Airlines flight, somewhere over the southeast United States. For the first time in my life, I bought a one-way airplane ticket. One way to Nashville, Tennessee. One way means this move is really happening—there’s no turning back.
When I flew over the island of Manhattan at 7:30 this morning, it was for my final time as a New York City resident. My license, my voters ID card, my library card, my mailing address—all have got to go. A new chapter is upon me.
I’ve lived in this city for just about four years. I knew after interning here in college that this was the place for me, in all its busyness and hustle and coffee-soaked dreams. I would be a magazine editor. I’d work at a women’s glossy and climb my way to the top, racking up free beauty products, fashion closet giveaways, and exclusive event invites along the way.
I’d see my name in lights—or rather, inside the pages of my favorite monthly magazine as a member of the masthead, a valued editor and regular contributor. I would not only meet but exceed the potential I was told I had in journalism school. I’d go beyond everyone’s expectations of me. I’d put that journalism degree to work and demonstrate the definition of success. If I could make it in New York City, I could make it anywhere.
And make it, I did. Magazine job, check. Manhattan apartment, check. Nights on the town, check. In some ways, I felt like a young Carrie Bradshaw (minus the Manolos and walk-in closet). Life wasn’t perfect by any means. But I was living the life I’d envisioned, a life I wanted others to see and admire. I felt good.
Around year two, things shifted. I lost my magazine job as the publication folded. New relationships blossomed while others faded away. The biggest shift: Old destructive habits resurfaced and my restrictive eating tendencies came back into play. I was relapsing in my recovery. I knew my life had to change.
I became more intrigued by church and my Christian community. I started to really hear what living for Christ meant. God placed a few women in my life who came alongside me in all the messiness. They loved me and showed me how life could change with a relationship with Jesus at the center. The more I invested in the Lord, the more parts of life that didn’t really matter began to fall away. His hand was on me then—and I saw how it had always been. He was calling me to a life of serving Him, loving Him, and ordering all other loves after Him. Slowly but surely, work took on new meaning. I no longer defined success as climbing the top of the career ladder. Work was a way to use my gifts to further His kingdom. The allure of the Carrie Bradshaw life lost its luster. I craved a simpler, quieter, and more peaceful existence. And God amazingly provided that in the craziness that is NYC.
For every year I spent here, I felt Him asking me to root in. He wanted me here. That was clear. So then why the move away?
Because I believe He is calling me to Nashville, Tennessee. It’s that simple and that complex.
I’ve known for a while that New York City wasn’t the place I wanted to stay forever—but I was open to that possibility should God ask me to. I continued to invest in New York. I called this city my home. I made friends here who are like family. I became a Believer here. It’s a place close to my heart.
I knew I’d need a clear and bold call from God in order to leave it. And that’s exactly what God did.
A year ago, God brought a man into my life who selflessly loves me and encourages me in my walk with Him. This man has done so despite 888 miles between us. As we grew in our relationship, Nashville—his home—became more of a reality for me. Yet I wasn’t convinced. How would I know if this was the right choice? How would I leave behind the community and passions the Lord cultivated in me in New York? I prayed about it almost daily. We prayed about it as a couple and sought counsel from those far wiser than us.
My journal entries for the past few months reflect this longing to know what would be next:
"God, place me where you will use me most."
"Father, help me listen to your call. I pray you light my steps. Grant me wisdom and confidence in my decisions, always running toward you."
"Father, I pray for trust in your plan. Help me trust in you. You have me in New York City, in this particular job, in this long-distance relationship, for a reason. You’re growing me and showing me more of your goodness. I praise you for that. Give me courage and help me to listen to your call for me. I need clarity in it, but I trust you to direct me. Help me to surrender, to find true freedom in you."
"Lord, keep me humble, keep me small, keep me reliant on you. I pray you place me where you’re going to use me most. Grand me wisdom and clarity in my decision-making. Help me to trust you and surrender to you in all things. I pray for protection in this process and for peace. I praise you, Lord. Amen."
The prayers poured out of me.
In August, God pointed me to a job at a church in the Nashville area. I was on the church’s website, looking around and about to listen to a sermon. Somehow I found myself on their jobs page—with a communications position staring right back at me. As I read through the job description, I swear my heart skipped a beat. Communications, marketing, social media, storytelling, ministry. The job seemed to be describing me. I applied immediately, and I interviewed on the phone three days later. I’ve never felt quite so encouraged, believed in, and supported during an interview. (And I’ve had some wonderful jobs and bosses.) My potential employer had read through my blog, even my testimony. He told me how it was an encouragement to him and how I clearly have a gift.
My excitement for the position grew. I completed an edit test and more interviewing. I prayed, and I journaled. I talked to those closest to me. I also doubted. I doubted that this was the right job for me. I doubted that I would be able to make a decent living in this role. I doubted that I would like the city, the church, the culture. I doubted a lot of things—all things that ultimately don’t mean anything if this is where God wants me. If this was God’s will, He would provide.
I was offered the job in a phone call a mere two weeks later. Not only that, but God went above and beyond in providing a salary, a title, and all the other material benefits of a job that I had hoped for. As I listened to my future boss offer me the job and explain why he wanted me on the team, I burst into tears. I cried the sort of crocodile tears that run down your chin and neck and smear your mascara. The tears that make a passerby stop to give you an entire tissue box (yes, really). I sweat completely through my shirt, and I felt like I might throw up. My reaction was one of pure joy, excitement, and disbelief. I was overwhelmed with God’s goodness in providing for me in every single way. I couldn’t quite believe the offer was real.
I went to visit the church and meet my potential colleagues that weekend. As happy as I was, I’ll be honest: I was uncomfortable. This Southern church is the complete opposite of how I grew up and totally different from my home in New York City. I wasn’t sure I’d fit in. I wasn’t convinced this was the best move for me because it was such a stark contrast to what I was used to. Leaving a great life behind seemed crazy.
This all felt crazy.
But the more I prayed, the more I understood how God wanted me to take a step of obedience. He wanted me to boldly walk in faith and courage. He’d be there with me through it all. He orchestrated it to begin with. All summer, I’d been leading women through a book study of Wild and Free—and how we can only live that way through Christ. This job opportunity is about as wild and free as it gets. God opened a door for me in a major way. It was time for me to go through it.
So on September 5, I accepted that job. I made the decision to move across the country—for a job, for love, and ultimately, for Jesus.
God has provided for me abundantly since then. He brought my roommate and me a great girl to take over my room in our apartment. He helped me sell all my furniture. He opened up my best friend’s schedule, allowing her a whole Saturday to travel from Pennsylvania and spend with me in the city. He gave me brothers in Christ who used their muscle to help me pack up and ship 50-pound boxes with all my belongings. He opened up a one-bedroom apartment for me that’s 15 minutes away from work, 15 minutes away from my favorite coffee shop downtown, and 10 minutes away from the man I love. He connected me with trustworthy car dealers to help facilitate that next step in the moving process. He gave me time to leave my job well and bid farewell to friends in the city.
God has tied up all the seemingly loose ends in a matter of three weeks’ time. The crazy decision to move doesn’t seem so crazy any more.
I’ve cried only a little bit about the move, and I praise God for that. My excitement is pure and deep. I know there will be growing pains with moving here. I know there will be moments of “What am I doing?”, times when I feel out of place in the South, when I dislike living in an apartment by myself, when I wish I could just walk to a coffee shop without getting in my car. But I believe in my heart God wants me to press into those feelings of uncomfortableness. I am not here by accident. God has me placed me exactly where He wants me to be, where He will use me most. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lord.
I can see the landscape of Tennessee as we fly closer. It’s beautiful.
“Folks, we should be touching down in about 15 minutes. Weather in Nashville is a little bit of misty skies but nothing too terrible, temperature of about 78 degrees Fahrenheit. We’ll be on the ground momentarily.”
Okay, Nashville, I’m ready for you.
You Learn A Lot About Your Heart When You Don't Have A Closet
Not my actual apartment, but it sure is dreamy.
Last month marked my fifth move in New York City, and I’ve only lived here for a little more than three years. Moving is never a fun experience, but moving apartments in NYC is enough to make one run away and give up everything to live in a hut on the beach.
In New York City, apartments come and go every day—usually your best bet for finding one is a mere two weeks out. You can’t really plan, and you don’t have a lot of control over your options.
I felt sick with the stress of finding my latest place, affording movers, and coordinating the whole moving process. Moving is one of those things that makes me truly anxious.
I had been checking apartment listings every hour of every day. I was so afraid that I would miss something great and regret it later. My counselor suggested I take a step back. She reminded me that I was not going to be homeless. The Lord abundantly provided during all of my moves, and He was clearly working. My family would have a place for me should I need it, and I had plenty of community around me to support me in the process, too.
After talking to her, I set up filters and email notifications on a few apartment rental websites. Then I stopped checking and let the websites do the work for me.
Just as soon as I quit freaking out, my roommate (not me!) received an email listing for a great spot. She and I saw the place the first day it went on the market. That day was the same day the rental company lower the rent to be within our budget and removed the broker fee. My roomie and I applied that day, and the apartment was ours within forty-eight hours.
If that's not a God thing, I don't know what is.
The situation was yet another that showed me the value in letting go. Loosening up, relaxing the grip on my life, and giving God the space to enter in.
Try as we may, sometimes we just have to let go a little. Moving so often, and under such tenuous city circumstances, taught me to let go of my need to control everything, but in a broader sense it taught me to let go of other things in life that weren’t necessary. Moving has been a grand adventure in learning to simplify my life and let go of the rest.
Here’s the thing: We live in a world full of stuff. It’s tempting to want more and more. During my latest move, my roommate and I discovered we had three SodaStreams. Three! And our new apartment is a sixth-floor walkup. Without closets.
Moving so often really forced me to think about my approach to life. When something suddenly becomes an extra five pounds that must be boxed, carried up six-plus flights of stairs, and stowed in a 900-square-foot space, you really start to examine what it adds to your life.
So I have to ask myself: “Can I find pleasure in a simple glass of tap water and avoid the clunky, costly presence of a 21st-century bubble infuser?”
Yes. Yes, I can.
It’s a lesson in moving, but it’s a lesson in life just the same.
Quality over quantity—that simple lesson has helped me redefine my life overall. I don’t have time to go to every event or see every friend, colleague, or former classmate who comes into town. I make time for the friends who also make time for me—the people I know will bring me life by being around them. When I’m seeing fewer people overall, I allow the relationships I do have to grow stronger, and our time together becomes that much higher quality.
Even more than quality over quantity, I'm learning what true quality really is. True quality means faith and provisions from God. You can't buy that kind of quality. I'm starting to understand why Jesus told us not store up for myself treasures on earth. Earthly treasures are just things. Just things. They are replaceable. As fun or as pretty as they might be, they don't add to my existence.
“But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Moving to an apartment without closets revealed all the junk I'd been storing up—not just in my closet (and under my bed and in random drawers) but in my heart. It's so easy to store things away, never really addressing them until they're forced to the surface. If I can hide it under the bed, then it doesn't really exist.
Let me tell you: Cleaning out the closet is good.
Clear out the junk. Organize the mess. Put everything on display and bring it into the light.
Your heart—and your apartment—will be happier when you do.
Oh, and those moving woes I had? Definitely #firstworldproblems. I live and work in the most expensive city in the country. I’m grateful to be able to make a living here in the Big Apple. These moves have shown me that I don’t need to control and plan out everything in my life. For a planner like me, it’s hard to come to grips with the fact that I can’t look for an apartment until the month before I need to move. But there’s such value in being able to let go and trust that everything will work out. It might not look the way you envisioned in your head, but it will work out according to His greater plan. This I know to be true.
Even when I think I’m not going to land an apartment, or not be able to afford moving fees, or not be able to find a roommate, I am pleasantly surprised with ample provision. When I think I can’t get rid of something because someday I’ll want it, I always find that isn’t the case. I’m happy to be free of it, and I can focus more on the things I have that I love. Being intentional about my approach to life and things makes me that much more thankful for it all.
Home is where the heart is. My apartment is my oasis. I rely on good food, good friends, and good music filling the space to make it feel like home. Lots of decorations and knickknacks no longer have a place in my space. They take up room, they’re hard to pack and move, and they ultimately end up collecting dust. Buying fresh flowers on the street after work or picking up a candle from the sale section at Marshalls are two indulgences that make my apartment cozy and comfortable. The rest of my focus is on the peace of my home and love of those I have in it.
I would never have chosen to move five times in the past three and a half years, but looking back on it, I’m grateful for the changes. I’ve learned to not sweat the small stuff and to give up the things I don’t truly need. To let go of control and surrender to Him. Now I understand that at the end of the day, possessions aren’t what makes a house a home. People, experiences, and the presence of God are. My life is so much fuller because of it.
If you want to talk more about Jesus Christ and faith and what-the-heck-is-all-this-stuff, shoot me a message. I love meeting new people, whether virtually or in person, and gabbing about life.
And if you'd like to know more of my story, you can read my testimony here.
Truly, He makes beautiful things.
The Moment My Eyes Were Opened
She had dark black bruises around both eyes. Her hair hung limply around her face. Her clothes were the indistinguishable black of every other New Yorker. She sat at the foot of the subway steps, with her back against the wall. Her son lie with his head down in her lap. I never saw his face. He was either asleep, or perhaps too tired or sick to sit up. In fact, if you walked by them fast enough, you would not have even known he was there. He was a small lump that could have passed for a rumpled-up blanket. Until you saw his shoes. His little sneakers gave him away.
It was this woman’s eyes that struck me. Those espresso-colored eyes with their awful bruises underneath. They glanced up at me with a look of utter exhaustion, as if even the slow movement of her eyeballs up toward me was painful. She didn’t have to speak to me—this look said more than her words ever could. She was despondent, hurt, defeated.
I stepped to her side, out of the continual flow of foot traffic up and down the subway stairs. I reached into my purse to pull out my wallet. I handed her a $5 bill and for a split second, her eyes lit up with the recognition that someone saw her. Someone stopped.
“God bless you. God bless you. God bless you,” she said to me.
I touched her hand. I nodded and gave her a small smile as I fought back tears.
I stepped away and walked up the stairs, ascending into a gorgeous fall evening in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in all of the city. No sooner did my feet hit the sidewalk before the tears came. Hot, wet crocodile tears streaming down my face.
I wept. I wept for this woman. For her son. For all the broken, the lost, the hungry. And for a few blocks, I couldn’t stop.
Streams of people continued all around me. I am sure someone saw me crying, but I let the tears flow freely. I realized I normally wouldn’t have even seen this woman, but on this night, she was put in my path. On this night, I had gotten off the subway at a different stop than my usual. I had planned to walk the rest of the way home while talking on the phone to my best friend.
As I began walking and dialed my friend’s number, the tears were still coming. I had a hard time catching my breath as I explained to her what had happened.
It’s okay; they’re good tears. Well, no, they’re really not good, but I’m okay. I’m sad.
There’s such brokenness in this world, Em. People are hurting. It is so hard, and I don’t know what to do.
A five-dollar bill created such a look of relief in this woman’s face. With five dollars, she and her son could each ride the subway one way. Or they could go to the McDonald’s down the street and buy two McDoubles, two sodas, and Chicken McNuggets off the Dollar Menu. But that’s it. Transportation or food. One or the other.
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
And yet she looked at me like I had given her the world.
Please hear me: This post is not my way of urging you to donate money, or to donate more money. This is not me patting myself on the back for helping this woman. This is me confessing how little I do to help. I don’t stop for each homeless person. I don’t volunteer at a shelter. I don’t often pray for them. I didn’t even understand the importance of tithing until recently. I am a good person, but I know I can do better. We can all do better.
Once I walked away from this woman, I immediately regretted not doing something more. Why didn’t I offer to take her to a women’s shelter, or take her to eat a real meal? I didn’t even tell her I would pray for her, or that she has a Father who loves her very much. Because when I looked in her eyes, all I could do was cry. Seeing my fellow human being in such a state really shook me.
It's so easy for me to complain about my life. I grumble about not feeling fulfilled in my career. I worry about my future and my finances. I stress about my social life and freelance work and finding time to fit it all in. Meanwhile the crestfallen and hopeless are literally lying at my feet.
It hurts to see a person in such brokenness because we are not meant to live like that. We weren’t designed for suffering. But we live in a fallen world, and suffering thrives.
“He raises up the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them He has set the world.”
My hope rests in the new earth, a time when suffering will be no more, when peace and joy will reign throughout. I am so very grateful to our God who provides that and who has adopted us into His kingdom.
But while I’m still here, on this earth and in New York City, what can I do?
There are almost 60,000 homeless people in NYC alone. It’s overwhelming. I pray that the Lord would open my eyes to one person who I can help. To put one person in front of me. One person who I can have a relationship with, who I can pray for, and who I can extend more than a $5 bill.
Maybe this woman is my person.
In that moment, my eyes were opened. If I see her again, I will talk to her. I will let her know that she is not alone. I will do what I can to get her and her son to safety. Most importantly, I will pray. Whether I see her again or not, she is still out there, still wounded and hurting.
Father, protect her and her son. I pray that you provide food for them to eat and a safe, warm place to rest their heads. I pray they would know you and find hope in you. And Father, I ask that you cultivate a heart of gratitude in me. Help me respond to the plight of others around me in however you enable me to do so. Help me to take action. Make us a city of doers, Lord. A city that believes in spreading kindness and humanity toward our fellow neighbors. Give us your strength to fight for our brothers and sisters, God. Make us more like Your Son, and help us remember His love and His mercy knows no bounds. Thy will be done. I pray all these things through Jesus Christ. Amen.