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This morning, Reader, I write to you from my new kitchen in Webster Groves.  Yes, we got moved in.  Yes, it was an ordeal, albeit a smooth and successful ordeal... still an ordeal, nonetheless.  Despite having spent the entire week leading up to the move in a lethargic wasteland of coffee, hot chocolate, New York Times crossword puzzles, 3-mile runs, pumpkin muffins, and whatever else I could think of to soothe my stress levels, motivation finally came for me the Friday morning after Thanksgiving.  I started working / packing / cleaning at 10 am and didn't stop until Sunday evening when the whole thing was over and done with.  Just to clarify, this means I spent all of Friday packing, all of Saturday moving, and all of Sunday cleaning the old apartment.  And to make matters even more spectacular, we didn't have heat in our new place Saturday night.  Amazing how 54 degrees outside feels relatively ok vs 54 degrees inside, which feels like an arctic igloo.  But the heat got fixed Sunday morning and we were thankful pilgrims in our new world... until Monday morning when I killed a wood roach / ginormous water-bug-looking creature the size of a small child.  Not to mention that the hot water here has a habit of running out after about 5 mins in the shower.  Needless to say, there are still a few kinks the landlord needs to look into but overall, renter's remorse isn't really an issue... not yet, anyway.  For the most part, Halley and I are nested in our new place, complete with Christmas decorations and the ficus I kidnapped from my parents' house, which is functioning as our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree this year.  There are in fact lots of virtues to our unceremonious move, like being able to shave 10-15 mins off my commute out to Lutheran three times a week, being closer to nearly all of our friends, reduced traffic since we're not actually living in the city anymore, and an apartment that keeps us warm and will (hopefully) be more cost-efficient this winter than the one in Tower Grove would've been... fingers crossed.  So far, it's been much better here, despite the cold snap we've had lately.

And can I just say that God has been so faithful in all of this?  He really has.  Somehow, as a piano teacher who just moved here in the last five months, I've acquired 11 private students and steady accompanying work.  Not only that, but I expect another student in January as well.  I will soon be at capacity.  The other night when I was stressed about finances and what feels like another tight month because of the move, the thought occurred to me that I'm the one who makes this machine work... that I make my own bread and butter.  And although this may be true to some extent, there's a lot more to be said for a God who's faithfully providing the work opportunities.  Turns out I'm actually not running this machine at all.  The other day I read an article in the New York Times about unemployment rates in the US... a seriously sad article over the state of affairs in this country's economic situation.  Let me be the first to say that I am so thankful for the work he's given me.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about contentment again, particularly with regard to my current single status.  I feel like I vacillate back and forth a lot between wanting to kill the desire to be in a relationship altogether and making it the focus of my thoughts... either way it becomes an idol in my mind and robs me of the contentedness I could have.  Sunday I went to see my counselor and we spent a lot of our session talking about this... let's be honest, this is one of the biggest ways God's been working in my life right now to draw me to him.  And to be even more honest, I've been kicking and screaming about it the entire way.  There's a lot of comfort though, in knowing that I don't have to kill the desire completely, nor do I have to just make myself be ok with the situation or pretend to like where I'm at.  The desire is completely good and valid.  But God doesn't just exist to oversee the fulfillment of our unmet desires... he won't sacrifice our faith in him so we can lose ourselves in our pleasures.  I've been grieving a lot this semester (now that I actually have time for that)... grieving the loss of many things in my past, as well as their current absence.  Lynn says that what I'm dealing with now, the grieving of delayed fulfillment of a long-held desire could be one of the hardest parts of the process -- recognizing the desire and submitting it (not killing it) to God and his perfect timing.  She says it will feel like death... dying to self always feels like death.  So in some sense, I've been in the way of my own contentedness all along.  And in all honesty, the contentedness is what I've been wanting more than anything.  I experienced it last spring for about 4-5 months and it was bliss.  And I feel like I've been trying to get back to that state ever since.

"Katie, no one... no man can ever touch the wounds you have in the way that you want them to.  No person has that salve, no one can give you the fulfillment you're looking for except Christ."

And I think the church twists this idea a lot... we make it into the jacked-up version of thinking where we expect singles to make God into their wife or husband, or say that we as humans can exist as islands without the benefit of human interaction and community, which just simply isn't true.  But being in a relationship to be happy, healed, content, and fulfilled?  It's just not going to happen.  Humans can't help us the way we want them to... the way we hope they will.

I am the woman at the well.  We all are.

Jesus answered [her], "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink the water I give them will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." ... The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming.  When he comes, he will explain everything to us."  Then Jesus declared, "I, the one speaking to you -- I am he."  John 4: 13-14, 25-26

During this Christmas season, may God reveal himself to you, Reader.  May you feel the joy of contentedness in submitting all your desires (met and unmet) to him.  May you feel the comfort of his presence in your life.  He is called Immanuel, God with us.  For he was one of us and his scars are our scars.  And he came to save his people... from their sins, from themselves, from their desire to find fulfillment in everything else in this world but himself.  Thank God someone stronger than us has spoken on our behalf.  He is our salvation, if we would but allow our hearts to be turned toward him.