God of This City

Yes, I realize that it has been almost three months since I have blogged at all. If you are looking for pictures, cute Ella-isms and fun stories this is not the post for you. Hang in there, I promise it is coming!There is way more to come, I have just been a little busy and distracted. Beware, this is probably going to be a long post!
I must also start by being honest. I feel like for the most part I am pretty open and will share my struggles with those that I feel comfortable. I feel that it helps me process what is going on in my life and hope that my struggles might help someone else. So what I really should have been doing this last month is sharing those struggles.
At the end of July we moved from Lawrence, Kansas to New Haven, Connecticut. While not a perfect place, we loved Lawrence. We spent five years of our lives there and it was comfortable, it was home. I guess I gave the adventurous part of myself a bit more credit than it deserved. I was so excited about moving and starting this new chapter in my life.
The move, compounded with me being five months pregnant was exhausting!! I was still very excited about everything though. My mom came up for a week and helped us with Ella and the house. And then she went home...
Since then I have not enjoyed Connecticut. There are some things that are very nice, like the beach, the cooler temperatures (I don't know if my Oklahoma people know this, but in other parts of the country people do things outside comfortably in the summer), and the proximity to two of my very favorite places, Boston and New York City!
Then I started to get lonely. It is basically Ella and me all day long, every day. I'm not working and we don't really have any friends yet. She keeps asking for her friends which makes me sad and makes me feel like a horrible mom for not being able to provide friends for her to play with.
Everything is very expensive and I have found a lot of the people here to be very short and grouchy. I am so used to living in the South and the Midwest where everyone smiles and talks to each other, even people that you don't know are generally polite.
New Haven can be pretty dangerous in spots. It's very weird, you go down one street and it is beautiful, clean and nice and the next street over is very sketchy. Not bad, just very different from what I am used to. I used to be able to run with Ella to the park every day. I had three great parks within running distance from my house. In my house now I can't go past my street by myself after it gets dark.
We tried out a Nazarene church that is about 25 minutes away and it was very much not what we were looking for, which was disappointing. We thought at least that would be one familiar thing that might help us transition a little better.
I can be a melancholy person by nature, and so needless to say all of these things and more caused me to start to spiral. I have been so upset for the past few weeks, so lonely, so frustrated and so confused. I must be honest in saying that up until Sunday I HATED New Haven.
I have always been one that speaks to and is spoken to by God through music. I know I've said many times before that music helps me understand the world around me. We have attended a new church for the past three weeks that we have been very pleased with. They seem to have their priorities in order and do a lot of things in the community instead of focusing inwardly. Ella has really enjoyed their children's department. My favorite part of the church is the worship. This Sunday one of the songs that we sang was "God of This City". I had heard it before and had heard the story behind it before and thought it was a nice story, but it never really meant anything to me. It was recorded by Chris Tomlin, but was originally written by an Irish band called Bluetree. They were asked to play in a brothel in Thailand. This song was written onstage. As they were looking out around them the words came to the lead singer and the rest of the band all started playing along with him. The words go like this:


You're the God of this City
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation
You are

You're the Light in this darkness
You're the Hope to the hopeless
You're the Peace to the restless
You are

There is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
Greater thing have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City

As I sang the familiar words to this song I began to cry and I really felt like God was speaking to me. He was saying, "Hey You, yes YOU! Get out of that funk! Wake up and take a look around you. Instead of being depressed because things are different around you and focusing on how much you hate this place, start focusing on me and the things that I can and will do in this city. Instead of hoping that you can get out of here as soon as possible and wondering how you can make it through two years here, focus on living while you are here. Meet your neighbors, love your neighbors. Why don't you try and get to know Me a little better while you are at it? Take care of your daughter, help her to understand who I am."

I will have to say that it shook me a bit. I realized how selfish I have been and how huge I have made some less than huge issues. It has sure changed my outlook on the world around me. The bad things haven't gone away by any means, but I do think that God is going to help me understand them better and deal with them as they come.

He has even provided some hopeful new friendships. In the bulletin there was an announcement for small groups that are meeting this fall. There was a meeting for those that were not involved in one, but would like to be. At the meeting was another family that recently moved with small children. The mom is around my age and invited us to a playgroup at her house. I know this probably seems like a small thing, but she was so nice and so open and I am excited about the possibility of getting to know her better and meeting some other moms. A lot of the parents around here are considerably older than Jimmie and I are, so we are excited to meet some people that are in the same station of life that we are!

I know that this has been a LOOONG post, but hopefully it will help you understand a little better where I am at in this time in my life. Hopefully I can have the courage to keep sharing and be open and vulnerable to what God is trying to tell me.