today i stepped into the kinross airport to see my cousins off before their long day of travel, and i started to tear up because i know that i am leaving this place next week too.

it hurts my heart to think about my life not taking place in the midwest. everything here smells good and it is home, more than any other place than i can think of, even my lovely salt lake. 
i don't want to leave, despite my arteries getting clogged. 
despite the mosquitoes, besides wal-mart being nearly the only store in town.
never mind the siberian winter, i could make it.

this past week has been too nice for words. 
salt lake feels like a burden that is hanging over my head. a deadline, maybe.

there are a lot of good things to come back to, friends to love, a church to serve, mountains to climb.
i love all of these things, and God has planted my flag in salt lake for a reason, but it is so hard to come back every year. this year i don't even have school looming over my head, so it just feels strange, to come back and continue my dead-end job. but i will keep moving. keep pursuing, and saying sad prayers, and trusting that God is using my small, day-to-day to benefit his Kingdom. and there is rest in that.

this time next week i will be sobbing silently in an airport in the middle of nowhere, but God has given me a lovely temporary home.  i am so blessed by my time in my small corner of what i imagine Heaven will look like.