The Gift of Presence

My family and I moved recently to colorful, gritty, spunky and historic Baltimore— “Charm City.” Our earnest desire is to plant ourselves here and not move again for a long, long time—as in decades. As such, we are doing careful research into where we want to buy a house, where we want to send our roots down. It’s a big decision.

Right now we have endless possibilities in front of us. We have the luxury of comparing neighborhoods and streets, surfing Zillow and imagining ourselves in each home, making our mental list of priorities and preferences. But one day soon, we’ll make a decision. As in one. One house, one neighborhood. We will love it, probably, but it won’t have everything. There will be some things we have to let go of in order to choose that one house. And once we move in, if we begin second-guessing and continue to imagine ourselves elsewhere—what if we had chosen that one instead? would we be happier?—we will make ourselves crazy.

When we say yes to one thing, we say no to others. When I said yes to my husband, I said no to the possibility of any others. When we say yes to this house, in this city, we will be saying no to others. That means it’s time to let the other possibilities go. They can’t camp out in a someday-room of my brain, enticing me from time to time with dreams and what-ifs. If I let them stay, they will slowly eat away at my contentment and at the purpose for which God has chosen a place for me.

As a third-culture kid who grew up in six different countries, I’m longing now to put down roots in a flesh-and-blood place with flesh-and-blood people. Within an actual physical boundary. I want to know and be known in this one place. I love, love, love my friends and family and peeps all over the world, but I also want to live life with the people right in front of my face each day. I want to be able to reach out and touch them, to give and receive hugs, to hold a hand in solidarity and sorrow. I want my physical home to be a welcoming place for relationships to grow.

This morning I asked God to begin weaving the threads of my family’s life into the fabric of others’ lives here in this city. I believe place matters to God. It is not inconsequential. He puts us in places, and He does it for a reason. I’ve lived much of my life feeling somewhat guilty for desiring to feel connected and rooted and part of the fabric of a specific place. After all, I say I belong to Someone who had no place to lay His head while He walked the earth. Oh, and heaven is my ultimate home, right? Yes, I believe that, and my longing for it grows each year that I’m alive. But I also believe that God wants me committed to the place in which He has placed me, to be fully present here so that His Emmanuel-nature can live through me in real love, presence, healing and grace. I can’t do that by remaining detached and uncommitted and discontent and transient.

Recently one of the elders at my new church gave a message, simple and bold, on the story of the paralytic’s four friends who broke through the roof to get their friend to Jesus. He asked us, “Are you a friend? Do you have friends?” The hurt and the longing of those words pierced me right through. Am I a friend who is vested so much in others that I will seek them out in their pain and paralysis, push through crowds, carry them and their burden, claw through whatever obstacle is facing me, and bring them to the feet of Jesus? Even now, as I sit here, new to this place and beginning relationships in hope, do I have friends who would do that for me? How I desire that.

So, I’m saying yes to this soil, to this plot of ground in the garden. I’m sending out my tentative little roots, feeling for the nourishment and life-giving water that is all around me. I’ll endeavor to “Emmanuel” myself where I am, choosing contentment of people and place and discovering the One who is active in them, making all things beautiful.

The gift of presence—His and ours—is the best gift.