And singing "God of this City" from the heart, to Boston, even though I couldn't tell you why yet.
Six autumns ago, I was a newbie from North Carolina, who didn't understand why no one smiled at her on the street, who had never owned "real" snow boots, and who thought that a Belichick was probably some Bostonian slang that I just didn't get yet. I was single, guarded, and not sure why I was here. Asking God to teach me about vulnerability and openness, and increase my capacity for love. To give and to receive.
Six years ago, as the weather turned crisp and cool, and the leaves began to melt into those brilliant hues of red and orange and fire and yellow - I fell in love with this town called Boston. Even though I was still lonely, still confused why I was here, and still unsure of who I was or where I was going, this city grabbed a piece of my heart that it still hasn't given back.
I've lived here longer than I've lived anywhere else on my own. And six Septembers in, this is my home, in as much as a place is home.
I've fallen in love with a boy from the south, here in the apple orchards and fall leaves of the mountains, walking beside noisy streets and beautiful fountains, the mix of history and modern all woven together, with the car horns blaring out the window because the traffic lights and roads are just too confusing, and the neighbors setting off fireworks in their backyards. I married that boy, and brought him to Boston, and together we made it our home. We brought home our first baby, born in the north of southern parents - with a blizzard in his first two weeks of life, and him loving bare toes and free fingers - and the love that we had thought big, grew even larger here in this city.
I've had some of my hardest months, weeks and days here, where my soul and my broken and my loneliness were exposed and cold and hurting. And where God was healing, one sliver of broken beauty at a time. I can say in faith and confidence, that God is answering my prayers for vulnerability and openness. That He has been, and is, teaching me myself. But more than that, Himself. And knitting me back together, one step at a time, in the company of strangers who became real friends and journeymen and confidants and mentors. And my guarded heart began to open and soften.
I've yelled at you, fought against you, resented you, and loved you. I've fought for you, when people say that you are hard, abandoned, or hopeless because those just are not true - not all of the story. I've gotten stuck in your traffic, wrecked by your traffic; I've run along your shores, and your roads and your paths and in those runs shared many of my hardest, deepest, most beautiful thoughts. I've dug out of your snow more times than I can count - fully broken in that first real pair of snow boots. I've rolled my eyes at more lost tourists trying to navigate their way through this crazy town. And flown south more times than I can count, as we balance the both/and of Northern living in a Southern family. And I still smile on the streets. And sometimes, your people, they smile back.
I've wept with you, Boston, when you were hurting. I was there when the bombs hit the roads. And I wept, not just because the country was weeping, or because of my own personal fear or grief, but because my city was hurting. My places, my streets, my stores, my landmarks... my people.
Even now, as I write this - and recognize that it's getting long already - I don't know how to put to words, Boston, what I feel for you. The fullness, of the love that I have for you.
I don't know how much longer we'll live here - it might be forever. It probably won't be. I don't know. But I do know that I love this city. It has become my home. A piece of my heart. And I still sing the words that I sang six Septembers ago... only now, I know just a little bit more of that hope. That heart-beating longing. For this city. For the things to come. For the ways in which I know that God is at work here. That I have seen God at work here. In me, and in this city. And so I continue to pray these words, to sing these words, with my whole heart, for you, and with you:
You're the God of this City
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation
You are
You're the Light in this darkness
You're the Hope to the hopeless
You're the Peace to the restless
You are
...
For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
Greater thing have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
Thank you, Boston, for these six rich Septembers. And for however many more there are to come...
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