From Storms and Palms

I am a fan of thunderstorms. I love the boom that fills the house after a good crack of lightning and the clamor of rain when it falls in buckets. It washes away the dust and grime of the everyday just as it drown out the noise of cars and air-conditioners, a blanket of sound. Once in a while I get to wake up to one of these storms.  It's the sort of thing that makes you want to sit by a window, read a book, and hold your friends close. When I watch the rain pound the brick from the back porch as I did a few days ago, book and pencil in hand, those desires come keen. Have there been any good storms in Holland, I wonder?

Leaving is a funny thing.  June saw me acting like a fidgety six-year-old at a doctor's office, stuffing as many animal crackers into his pockets before having to go. I was safeguarding those last moments, as if I was planting a flag so that no other place or circumstance might claim them. I treated every farewell as my last, should circumstances not allow another meeting. The truly final farewell was the best. A bunch of our crew (some I had thought I wouldn't see again) were sprawled across a living room on a friday night like so many times before, talking, snacking, and watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. With that image in my mind my parents and I packed up books, clothes, and a beastly dresser into a U-haul, stopped by LJ's for a farewell coffee from my sister, and began the long, long drive to Tampa, Florida. I became one of the Hope grads, scattered or soon-to-be. The gravity of the thing came as slowly as the passing of the miles. I was leaving my home, a place of such grace and goodness, for a place of utter mystery.

Yet God has proven his faithfulness. There are heaps and heaps of goodness waiting to be found here. When my housing plans fell through and I had no other options, He provided not only a better place to live, but lovely hosts who opened there home to me until I can move in. I have found a church, and (thank heaven!) they have offered me the chance to play in their worship. More and more every day I am seeing that it is good for me to be here. All this and the adventure has only just begun.

Even so, I miss Holland, and I miss Hope. I miss LJ's and 8th street and the smell of Dimnent in September. I miss the parades of students in the pine grove those first weeks of school and the thousand-strong voices singing to God. I miss you, my friends, my family, my people of Hope. I do not doubt that I have met and will continue to meet new people to call my people here in Tampa, but it is because of you, your leadership, your friendship, and your faithfulness to God that I have become who I am today. I eagerly look forward to the day when we can meet again as student and pastor, mentee and mentor, brother and sister, geeks and goons, singers of songs, people of Hope. Until then, know that I love you and miss you so, so dearly.