Well, I think the phone call place might be a bust…. I just think I can get better for the same price. But the neighborhood was really cool…. a really wooded, residential kind of place.

What am I sayin… a really wooded place??? Good grief, I think Tennessee is made up of nothing BUT trees. I think you’d be hard pressed in this city to find even 50 yards without a tree! If the northwest ever feels like it’s going bald, they can just come here and grab a few trees from Nashville. I don’t think anyone would even notice their missing.

I did find a couple of other potential places, and I think I made a potential new friend at one of the places I went. We talked a lot about moving from place to place and how we ended up in Nashville — she came from Denver by way of Miami…. so I guess my story didn’t sound so weird to her as it does to others.

I did put down a deposit and app fee on one place. But I’m not completely sure its the right choice. It’s $50/mo more than the highest I’d planned to spend. Hmm…. just don’t know what to do. Don’t you just wish sometimes God would send you His answers/ideas/… heck I’d settle for a, “that sounds okay” message — via FedEx? Man, I do. Especially right now.

Oh, yeah, about the title of this post. I named this blog “A Voice of Hope” because, well, that’s been the theme of my life for the past couple of years. Have you ever found themes running through your life/relationship with Jesus? You know, where everything you learn and experience can all be traced back to these themes?

For me, one of the major themes over the last few years has been hope. Now, I’m not talking about that fluffy, ethyrial “out there” thing the church has bottled and convinced us is hope. I’m talking about God-hope. The gritty, messy, aching, longing stuff. The hope a pregnant mom feels in the 9th month, when her back is killing her, her ankles are swollen and she’s tired of not being able to see her feet, but excited to see her new baby. The hope a child feels when Christmas is just close enough to touch and taste, but still far enough away that it feels like YEARS before she’ll get to open the presents. That’s God-hope. Its the stuff that both fills you with excited anticipation and an overwhelming ache, joy that “it’s” coming and sorrow that “it” is not yet here.

I love God-hope. It drives me crazy. It drives me to tears. It drives me to my knees, in pain and in worship.

It’s what I live with every single day. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Following Jesus is a most amazing adventure. But you have to be willing to pay a price in sweat and tears, and get paid a daily wage in God-hope.