maybe you saw this coming...

...but I sure didn't.

I feel pretty separated from Nigeria at this point. I didn't think this would happen. Actually, I feared it would happen and tried to convince myself I could avoid it. As cold as this sounds, it almost feels like I've moved on.

The past couple days, I've been talking about Nigeria a lot: the circumstances that led up to my relocation, the strongholds that were broken in my life while I was there, the person I became, the discoveries I made, the life I led. I allowed myself go back to it all and dwell on it.

It's terrifying how far away it all seems to me. It's also unnerving how different my life is now. It's an exciting kind of different--thrilling, even--and I wouldn't change it or substitute it or even go back. It's just unexpected.

My friend Laura reminded me this morning of something I wrote back in June, a week before I left Africa:

Moments like these make me want to throw my hands in the air and ask God "Why this? Why now?" I'm sure he's got this all under control, but sometimes I'd really like to be let in on the secret.

It's starting to make sense to me why I'm back in the US, and I can't tell you how many times I've looked at friends or family and said, "I'm so glad we're on the same continent right now!" But the price I'm paying for that to be true is more costly and more painful than I anticipated. There have been times in the past few months especially that, had you handed me a ticket to Abuja, I would have gone without so much as a carry-on; I ached that badly.

But in this I have confidence: I am where I am supposed to be, for such a time as this.
I said the exact same thing about being in Africa, and it is no less true now that I'm in America.

To my Nigerian friends and family: I miss you more than I can say. God is still sovereign.