I can no longer count the years I have been "on the go." I have moved so many times it took my once free spirit and drained it of any desire to live in new places. I have lived in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Maine in the past two years and have had a total of four state changing moves in one calendar year.

Once upon a time I desired to "see the world" but now I feel as though I have been homeless for years, constantly moving for far too long. Prior to this season of life, prior to college, I lived in the same town and the same house all my life only every traveling for vacations. I, like the Israelites, had set my roots in a town before I was even born, but now have been on the move for what feels like forever.

At first I left with praise, only to grumble and complain shortly after. But grumbling no longer describes it, for I have been moving far too long. Wearisome is a much better word to describe the state it has become. It's been lonely, hopeless, and continuous, something the Israelites and I could have found solace in knowing we're not alone.

The Israelites and I hold two more commonalities, we both have had clear signs that God is providing for us, and yet we both have an absolutely terrible memory. For them it was food and water that they required in the desert and God provided every time. For me it was shelter, and God has provided beyond my own means.

And yet through all this, a part of me asks God why He took me from a home full of friends and family, like the Israelites begging to return to Egypt where they could fill their stomachs with food. It is moments like this that God foresaw, and it is moments like this that God took us both through the Red Sea to no longer allow us to return to our comfortable/complacent state. You see, had we returned to our previous life (me in my hometown and the Israelites in Egypt) we never would have grown up, much less grown at all. We both needed to move out and move on, despite the discomfort and grumbling, but God provided for our every need (not want, but need).

It's easy to read the miracles God blessed the Israelites with on their trek through the wilderness and wonder how they could forget God's clear provisions, and yet I do the same in my own life. The only difference is that I know the end of the story for the Israelites, so it's easier to point the finger. I know they find their way to the promised land, despite the years upon years of constant moving and homelessness/uprooting.

So as I point the finger at those complaining Israelites I can't help but face the fact that just as I know the ending to their story, so too has God given me the ending to mine...it is the same. God promised to the Israelites that they would reach the promised land and they did. God does not bring people through the wilderness, through trials, through pain, through anything without a clear purpose and a destination.

So I am here. I am ready to end this season of life and set roots where I am here in New Jersey. But the difficulties now is relearning how to set roots of permanence after being on the move for so long. How does one build a home when they've been living in a movable tent for so long? Setting roots does not solve problems, it is merely a different season of problems.

And just because I desire to set roots out of weariness does not mean I can stop listening to God's leading. I believe that I am here to set roots, and oh how I want to set roots, but that is not up to me or even to Steve. We set our roots where God leads and we enter into seasons of wilderness where God leads, all we have to do is continuously obey and hold faith that God has a purpose for it all.