I am a Nashville baby. I just moved here this summer; July 8, in fact. With a substantial three-week break to visit home, go to a wedding, and do some fundraising, I returned on September 8 to begin my life here. That’s what I mean by “Nashville baby”: I haven’t lived here long, but this is the start of an incredible adventure.
I’ve wanted to live in Nashville since I was 17. For eight years, I pined for Nashville. My aunt and uncle live here, which is how I first came to Nashville the summer before my senior year of high school. That first little visit, probably just two weeks long, planted seeds in my heart that could never be rooted up. I fell in love with Nashville, TN.
I wanted to go to law school. After that first visit, I decided I would go to Vanderbilt Law School. I didn’t really care that it was Vanderbilt. I just cared that it was in Nashville. So I set my sights firmly on Vanderbilt, so much so that in my diary, at the end of each entry, like a mantra that would make all my dreams come true, I wrote “Keep moving forward. Make a difference. NMSU ’11/Vanderbilt ’14.” Every day.
I didn’t come here for law school. In fact, I never went to any law school, because the tug on my heart for missions took precedence.
As a missionary, I got to move to the mountains of north Georgia (the state, not the country), and then live in Atlanta for two years. It wasn’t Nashville, but it was the South, which was close enough for me. (Let’s clarify something: New Mexico is considered the Southwest, not the South. So even though it’s in the southern half of the US, it’s just not the South. Its character is different, its food is different, its culture is different. Also awesome, but no sweet tea. Feel me?)
I don’t really know what’s next, nor can I imagine the reach my time here will have, for me or those I meet, but I know that I wouldn’t be here if God wasn’t faithful. He is faithful, because not only has he let me come to the city of my dreams, but he brought me here in 2014, the year I would’ve graduated from law school. He brought me to a too-cute neighborhood in the city, but it’s also a neighborhood that needs restoration and love. He’s brought me here, in his time and in his way, at a time in my life where I’m more sure of myself than I’ve ever been, almost like he’s saying, “Here you go, little one. Start something that can’t be stopped.”
Know what’s cool? I don’t just live here or work here or serve God here. And I know I didn’t just come here by coincidence. God is doing something way better than my tiny, expensive law school dreams would’ve allowed.
