Moving the Furniture Never Helps

When I feel unsettled, I move furniture. I seem to believe that if I can just get my furniture in the right place, then my heart will be at peace. It is also, perhaps, a need to believe that I can control something in a life that feels out of my control. I may not know what the future holds, but I sure as heck know a better place for this bookcase. 

I remember when I was staying in my parents' basement after my divorce, shoving an antique roll-top desk across the floor with the full force of my body in the middle of the night. 

I think I moved the furniture in my 600 square foot apartment in Dallas at least 12 times in two years. I would be trying to scoot my impossibly weighty king size mattress, inch by inch, just because I became certain that my bed should be on the other wall. Every time my mom arrived in town for my cancer treatment, something would be different. 

And not all of my furniture is light Ikea pieces, mind you. My furniture is solid wood. It is heavy and ridiculous to move.

Mostly, I own books. I brought four bookshelves to Jeff's house when I moved here. The amount of books I have shelved and re-shelved is probably in the hundreds. Because I never wait for help. I always do this on my own.

Last week, Jeff was planting. This means that for two weeks or so, he works long hours and is gone most every day. 

Last week, I moved the furniture. 

It really is a hazard to leave me alone for too long. 

It isn't that everything in my life is unsettled at the moment. I have a great job, a husband I love, a safe home, and one little squash plant growing in my garden. I have plenty to eat and money in the bank. In so many ways, my life has improved. 

But still, I move the furniture. 

I think this is because, even now, there is a void that I am continually trying to fill with things that won't fill it. There is, for one, a void for deep local friendships My best friends are spread across the country and I have learned, through many moves, the importance of building local relationships as well as maintaining my long-distance ones. There is also a void for scenery, if I am being honest, because the land I live in is a bit desolate (though I am honestly trying to make the best of it). And there is perhaps, a void where the faith I once had used to live. 

My faith in God was once easy and certain. It was simple and pleasing. And then I worked in a place where children get abused and teenagers get murdered. I lost a marriage I believed in. I got cancer and went through chemotherapy. And my faith in God became strained and unfamiliar. 

Hear me when I say, I have not ever lost complete faith in God. My faith is just different now. 

It has taken me years to warm back up to a relationship with my Creator. It has taken years to believe in the power of prayer again. And if I am being honest with you, I am still not convinced I ever want to be a part of a church again. 

But also hear me when I say that this is all OK. God does not fit in a box and does not require us to smile when the world falls apart. God is a God who feels our pain and lets us dwell in it until we are ready to believe again that He is good. 

I say sometimes that Jeff is the reason my faith is still alive. There has to be a God for me to have found someone like Jeff after the dark years. And slowly, with Jeff's grace and quiet kindness, we have begun to find our faith in God again, together. 

Some days, like the one last week, I still move the furniture, hoping yet again that it will give me a sense of peace. And other days, I have the quiet contentment of one who has been refined by the fire and lived to tell the tale. 

Perhaps, it is not a bad thing to live between these two realities. And perhaps, I really shouldn't try to move the sofa bed again.