missing the couches

I have loved living in this house for the last seven months. The house is beautiful, amazing, and huge. The roommates are thoughtful and fun. I don't want it to change. Especially the roommate who's moving out and taking the really nice couches with her. But it's not just her. It seems that most of my roommates will be moving out and I'm feeling apprehensive and just plain scared about the whole thing. I want to live here. I like it here. I don't want to be the only one left, and I don't want to search for roommates. Really, I just don't want to deal with the whole mess. It seems the conversation comes up every other day, and no one's any closer to a decision, and it makes me so stressed that I just want to escape. 

I need to remember that I don't have to stay here if my roommates leave - I could leave, too. I'm also fairly certain that I could find roommates to fill the house up if needed. And if I left, even though I would live in a smaller and dumpier place, that would be ok, too. And I could make new friends in a new apartment just as well. So although I love the space and the light and the couches, learning to rely upon the Lord is more important. 

What complicates matters a little is that I don't know what I'm going to be doing. I don't have a job for next year. I don't have a place to live, and I don't know what part of the country (or world!) I should be in. I just don't know. And I have to remember that the Lord's pattern for revelation is not to give full answers at specific moments, but to give bits of answers here and there - line upon line, precept upon precept. And that manna is provided one day at a time. We don't get a two-day supply. Instead, we have to have faith that the Lord will provide manna for us tomorrow, just as He did today. So. The conclusion of this rambling is that manna will come tomorrow and the next day, I will eventually receive the revelation I need, and that I'm ok and that I will be ok. But I will miss the couches.

I've been reading tons of books about teaching and education lately, and something Jeff posted the other day suddenly explained why. He said, "I think I was just curious to learn what this medical school experience meant to others with the hope that that would tell me what this experience meant to me." Yep. He got it exactly right. What has this meant to me? How have I been changed? Will it ever not matter? What will I think about my experience in ten years?