Home Is Where My People Are: The Roads That Lead Us to Where We Belong (13 page)

I quickly learned that the whisper praying could get awkward in a group, though. One night several of us were sitting around a table together, about to eat supper, and Emma Kate offered up a lengthy, heartfelt blessing with such hushed fervor that I finally cocked one eye open and looked around the table. When I realized that Elise was looking back at me, I silently mouthed a question that seemed increasingly pressing:

DOES SHE KNOW THAT WE CAN’T HEAR HER?

Elise shrugged and quickly closed her eyes; I suspect she didn’t want to be caught with her eyes open when the Holy Spirit inevitably showed up.

I mean, how could He possibly resist all that whispering?

The adjustments on my end of things turned out to be harder than I’d thought. Since I’d spent most of my summer avoiding food
 
—save those steaks Mama made me eat after my sinking spell at Walmart (well, there was also one night when I was so desperate for something crunchy that I drove to the store and bought a bag of Ruffles and a container of French onion dip and pretty much confirmed once and for all that I am drawn to a simple carbohydrate like a moth to flame)
 
—I hadn’t really worked out how to
live
with it, which was a way bigger and more important issue. I’d also failed to consider that eating out was a huge part of our social life at college, and what worked for me in Myrtlewood didn’t fare so well in Bulldog Country. It seemed like there was temptation at every turn because, well, there was temptation at every turn: fried broccoli bites at Harveys, fried shrimp po’boys at Oby’s, fried catfish at the Little Dooey.

Perhaps you’re noticing that “fried” was a bit of a theme.

But
 
—just as it can be now
 
—the combination of good food and good company was too much to resist, and before I knew it, I was driving in reverse on my personal weight-loss course.

Seriously. I think I gained eight pounds in four days. In hindsight, Emma Kate’s whisper praying seems like a total nonissue compared to how quickly I backed off my original goal of sharing my weight-loss victory and turned into a walking billboard with an ever-present slogan plastered on the front: “FOLLOW ME IF YOU’D LIKE TO FIND THE CHEESE FRIES.”

Gradually, though, we settled back into the rhythm of college life, and the days started to follow a predictable pattern: I’d wake up, shower, and amble over to Elise and Tracey’s room for some early morning conversation (to be clear, the conversation was usually with Elise; Tracey has always been a gifted sleeper, so I could sit on her bed, blow-dry my hair, sing an operatic rendition of the national anthem, and maybe even light a couple of sticks of dynamite without disturbing Tracey’s REM cycle). Then I’d walk down to
Daph’s room and analyze an Indigo Girls song or two before I’d get ready for class, drive over to Lee Hall to take care of all my academic business, head back to the house, hang out in Wendi and Marion’s room, laugh until suppertime, then find a friend or two and ride around Starkville and sing until we were too tired or hoarse to keep going.

In retrospect, it wasn’t exactly a
high-pressure
time of my life.

But oh, my fickle heart. It was just so stinkin’ restless.

And the liquid diet, the forty fewer pounds, the smaller-size skirts
 
—well, much to my disappointment, they hadn’t done a single thing to change that.

For as long as I’ve known her, Emma Kate has been superorganized. She’s really good at figuring out what needs to go where and then sticking to her system. I, on the other hand, tend to put things in places that don’t make sense. Right now, for example, I have lightbulbs stored above the washing machine and toilet paper next to paintbrushes in a laundry-room basket because SURE, THAT SEEMS LOGICAL, and I am apt to get nineteen kinds of frustrated when I can’t find my favorite earrings and then remember,
Oh, wait
 
—I’ve been keeping all my jewelry in that piece of pottery next to the oven.

Emma Kate’s predictability with what goes where was an odd comfort to me when we lived together. For example, I always knew I could find her spare car key on the right-hand side of her bottom drawer, and she faithfully stacked her sweaters in the most orderly way on the top of the built-in shelves on her side of the room. Her Bible, journal, and devotional book lived on the ledge over the top of her bed; her selection of Christian aerobics videos (because OH, YES, that was totally a thing back then) stayed on the second shelf of our TV stand; and the memory verses she’d written on index cards filled the bottom half of her bulletin board.

Oh, those memory verses
 
—I don’t know if Emma Kate had any idea how often I’d stand next to her bed, look at that bulletin board, and try to figure out how those verses applied to my life. Here’s the one I remember more than any other:

PHILIPPIANS 1:21

Quite frankly, I just wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that.

I mean, I got the sentiment of what Paul was trying to say to the church at Philippi: your true life is in Christ, not in your selfish desires.

But did he really have to take it one step further and say, “To die is gain”? SERIOUSLY, PAUL?

Honestly, that verse annoyed me to no end and flew in the face of everything I wanted to believe about my life. Because to my way of thinking, since it was in fact
my
life, it should be about my wants and my wishes and my comfort and my plans and my happiness. I didn’t want to miss out on a single thing that I deemed being worth my energy or my time
 
—no matter how potentially destructive that thing might be
 
—and even though I’d said yes to life in Christ when I was fourteen, I was scared to think about what changes would inevitably come my way if I really and truly embraced my own death.

Does that make sense?

Let me put it this way: I could look at Emma Kate’s life and see consistent sacrifice and surrender all over it. I, on the other hand, was the queen of compromise, and I LIKED IT THAT WAY. I liked that I had a little streak of rebellion that reared its head at Nickel Draft Beer Night every now and again. I liked that while I was a “good girl,” I wasn’t a Goody Two-shoes. I liked that I lived with a foot on each side of the fence, because that meant my faith never made me uncomfortable. I liked that I could change and adapt and chameleon so I fit right in no matter where I was.

But Paul, you see, wasn’t having any of that with the church of Philippi
 
—and he wasn’t having any of it with me, either. His worldview was crystal clear.

Here’s what life is: Christ.

Here’s what death is: gain.

Next question?

So every day
 
—every single day
 
—when I looked over at the bottom right corner of Emma Kate’s bulletin board, those words ran right up against my
pride and bucked my strong sense of entitlement that I should get to follow Jesus on my own terms.

And I have no idea why I thought following my own spiritual counsel was a good idea. After all, I was the same person who’d decided that starving myself for the better part of ten weeks was a winning weight-loss strategy, and clearly that was some prime-time stupid.

But try though I did, I couldn’t get away from the fact that the Lord was reminding me over and over again
 
—through my sweet roommate, through her perfectly organized bulletin board, through the ways the Holy Spirit would prick my heart late at night when I wondered what real peace felt like
 
—that somehow I was missing out on the joy of my salvation. And whether I liked those nudges or agreed with them or gave them my personal stamp of approval, the bottom line was that if I really and truly belonged to Jesus, He wasn’t going to let me settle for a comfortable, convenient call of my own making.

Granted, a call that’s comfortable and convenient would be, like, eleventy million times easier.

But thanks to Emma Kate’s ever-present index cards, there was no escaping Paul’s words and the near-constant reminder that I was going to have to make a choice
 
—a real, grown-up choice
 
—to fully embrace life in Christ by fully embracing the death of everything I thought I held so dear.

Because no matter how hard I insisted that I knew best, I couldn’t seem to convince God to get on board with my plan to straddle the fence and content myself with lukewarm faith.

Apparently I’d severely underestimated the power of Emma Kate’s whisper prayers.

S
O A FUNNY
thing happens in the South when people finish college.

Okay. Maybe it’s not funny.

And maybe it’s not just the South.

So let me start over.

Occasionally a particular thing happens in the South and also in other parts of the world when people finish college.

They get married.

You’re welcome for the fact that I just took fifty words to say what I probably could have said in five.

And by the time I finished my undergraduate work at State, I felt like
everybody
was getting married. Now, I personally wasn’t one of the people who was planning a wedding because, well, I’d never dated anyone seriously, and that’s generally a pretty solid requirement for getting to the part where the guy of your dreams puts a ring on it, as my dear friend Beyoncé would say.

(I should clarify that Beyoncé and I aren’t really friends.)

(Well, we were, but then she saw me do the “Single Ladies” dance and was basically consumed by white-hot jealousy. In my defense, however, it is hardly my fault that a French-cut leotard and I go together like rice and gravy.)

(Oh, I am a kidder who very much enjoys the kidding.)

Anyway. Yes. Weddings. Many of my friends were planning them. And back when I was young and fresh faced and well versed in the musical stylings of Wilson Phillips, the part that caught me off guard was that in addition to the general state of giddiness that goes hand in hand with celebrating a college friend’s engagement and marriage, there was also a flip side: the inescapable realization that Real Life
 
—it was nigh. It was impossible to ignore that there were all sorts of responsibilities and pressures just around the proverbial corner.

That sounds like Debbie Downer, doesn’t it? I don’t really mean it that way. Because listen
 
—I love a good wedding. And I loved seeing my friends fall in love. And I loved getting to be a bridesmaid and participating in the wedding-related fun.

But inevitably, when the last of the rice or the birdseed or the rose petals had been thrown and I’d changed from my bridesmaid’s dress and heels into sweats and Birkenstocks, I’d spend most of my drive back to wherever home happened to be at the time feeling like I didn’t know what to make of my early twenties since they didn’t look anything like what the Brat Pack movies of my high school days had trained me to expect.

I thought I could trust you, Rob Lowe and Demi Moore.

HOWEVER COMMA YOU LIED TO ME.

Because here’s what I’d expected: a very grown-up life. I thought I’d drink fancy wine and maybe live in a historical townhome with an interior brick wall and a claw-foot tub in the bath. I pictured glowing success at a job that totally energized me and provided me with a deep reservoir of disposable income. I figured that surely
 
—SURELY
 
—I would have ironed out all the wrinkles in my faith. And most of all, I imagined that no matter where I lived, my closest friends from college would be right there with me, more than likely sporting some long, equestrian-print skirts and Adrienne
Vittadini sweaters as we wrapped up our days at a really nice restaurant like Olive Garden or TGI Fridays.

But, well, no.

So go ahead and make some wavy
Wayne’s World
fingers. Sit back and relax. We’re about to have ourselves a flashback.

The summer before my senior year at State, Elise and Paul got married. They did this because (1) they wanted to commit their lives to each other in a Christ-centered union, and (2) their hormones would not permit them to stay single any longer. They’d dated for three years, and since Paul had graduated at the end of our sophomore year, Elise took every summer school course in the free world (slight exaggeration) and finished her degree two semesters early. I have no idea how she managed to do this considering that she had a very lively social life, a job in the College of Engineering, and a time-consuming hobby as our personal etiquette consultant.

Okay. She wasn’t really an etiquette consultant. But sister-friend knew her Emily Post backward and forward, and woe be unto anyone who decided to wear a hat after sundown (“You’re protecting your face from what, exactly? The rays of the moon?”) or don some white shoes after Labor Day (“WHITE BELOW THE BELT! We’ve got some WHITE BELOW THE BELT!”). I think all my friends would agree that it made sense for Elise to be the first one to get married; she had mama-ed all of us within an inch of our lives since our freshman year, and you only had to look at her and Paul when they were together to know that they were meant to be.

So August of my senior year, Elise and Paul had themselves a wedding. I think there were fourteen or fifteen bridesmaids, and we wore dresses that honest-to-goodness defy my fortysomething brain in terms of offering a description. I can only tell you to picture the busiest floral print you’ve ever seen in your life, place said floral print against a navy-blue background, and then wrap eighteen yards of that fabric around your body.

Then find yourself four more yards of fabric and wrap that around your shoulders.

The end.

We didn’t so much wear those dresses as we were
enveloped
within them.

At the time, though, we thought those dresses were gorgeous. In fact, we thought everything about Elise’s wedding was gorgeous.

(Hold on.)

(I cannot say that with a clear conscience.)

(Because I most definitely did not think that Elise’s bachelorette party was gorgeous. It was fun, but it wasn’t gorgeous.)

(Go ahead and make those
Wayne’s World
fingers again.)

(It’s time for a flashback within the flashback.)

(
Fancy.
)

Honestly, I don’t know who in the world decided that we should go to New Orleans for Elise’s bachelorette party. It was in New Orleans in July
 
—and as far as I’m concerned, those two things should have nothing to do with each other. Certainly I understand that New Orleans has a reputation for great food and great music and a certain degree of, um,
mirth
, but none of that negates the fact that July and August are miserable down there. The humidity hangs from the sky like damp, musty sheets on an endless clothesline, and you can almost see the steam that hovers all along the riverbank reach out and attach itself to people as they weave their way through the French Quarter.

This sort of environment does not necessarily make me feel very festive.

But for Elise, I tried to be a good sport. I
wanted
to be a good sport. I plastered a smile on my face when we were getting ready to leave her parents’ house for the drive to New Orleans, and I strategically picked a seat in the car that would provide me with optimal AC access.

I may have been young, but I was no fool when it came to proper summertime cooling techniques in the Deep South.

We reached the outskirts of New Orleans in a little over an hour, and I only had to look at the way the sun was hitting Lake Pontchartrain to know that it wasn’t just hot
 
—it was HOT. The water looked thick and still
 
—like you’d need a scoop to put it in a bucket
 
—and I started to dread all the walking we’d be doing that afternoon and night. Yes, I
loved Elise like a sister, but New Orleans in July was going to call for a level of selfless sacrifice and surrender that I simply could not achieve in my own strength.

This was when I began to silently petition the Lord with a zeal I had not known since my high school days.

I realize I have been a little distant lately, what with all my questioning and stubbornness and insistence that You should really consider doing things my way. Forgive me for all that, Lord, and help me to trust You more.

Now. With all that out of the way, I really need to talk to You about this New Orleans in July business.

Lord, I love my sweet friend Elise. I’d do anything for her. I’d wash her clothes, I’d clean out her car, I’d write a seventeen-page term paper for her on the topic of her choosing. But, sweet Jesus, I do believe that this particular travel assignment is beyond me. Because, Lord, it is hot. It is humid. I am sweating through my clothes even as I offer up this humble prayer of desperation right here on the Twin Span Bridge. This level of perspiration DOES NOT BODE WELL, Lord, as I am currently completely inactive inside an air-conditioned vehicle.

Ohhhhh, heavenly Father, would you bind this heat? Would you consider providing a thunderstorm that might usher in a hint of a cool breeze? It doesn’t even have to qualify as “wind.” Just some movement in the trees, Lord. Yes, Lord. MOVE, Holy Spirit. Breathe on us. But not hot air, Lord. Breathe some cool air. Please. Sir. Lord. Jesus. Some cool, refreshing air. Just like, you know, you do in the mountains. We’d be oh so grateful.

In Jesus’ name.

Now I know full well that the Lord
heard
my prayer, but in His sovereignty (I am using churchy language to hopefully conceal my lingering bitterness about the state of the weather that weekend), He opted to answer
it differently from what I’d requested (continuing with the churchy language option). In fact, when we pulled up to our hotel, the air was so thick with humidity that the car windows fogged, and I braced myself for the wall-o-steam as I savored the car’s last bit of air-conditioning and cracked open the door.

OH, MY SWEET FANCY MOSES.

All I could think of was a song I used to hear on
Hee Haw
when I was a little girl:

     
Gloom, despair, and agony on me

     
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery . . .

Not that I was being melodramatic or anything.

Our hotel rested under the shadow of the I-10 overpass on Canal Street, and I couldn’t shake the thought that our parents would be horrified to know that we were spending the night at the intersection of Murder and Danger. After I grabbed my overnight bag from Elise’s trunk, I side-eyed my way to the front door of the hotel, my mama’s voice echoing in my head every step of the way: “Sophie, I just don’t think I feel very good about this.” In retrospect, I know we were probably at a solid seven on a safety scale of one to ten, but I think the heat was multiplying my paranoia and interfering with my ability to reason.

Clearly I was a real ray of sunshine that afternoon
 
—you have probably picked up on that. But since I wanted to seize the day and savor the moment, I tried to think of ways to make it better. I remembered that when I was a little girl and would get ill as a hornet about the heat, Mama always used to tell me to go in the bathroom and run cold water over my wrists. I thought about trying that trick once we settled in our rooms, but I figured it would be like trying to put out a fire with a water gun.

After Elise passed out room keys, we rode the elevator up to the tenth floor. Since there were eight of us on our NOLA excursion, we’d hatched a plan to split the cost of two hotel rooms in order to keep the cost affordable. To our surprise, however, we unlocked our rooms and found that they came complete with two twin beds
 
—not the two double beds we were expecting.
That meant we were going to have to either pay for two more rooms or sleep two to a twin bed.