This is probably not the best book for me to be reading right now, as it's all about leaving Texas and finding some other home. But, still, it's one of my favorites and sometimes says the wanderlust better than I can. Today he writes this:

[This city in Texas] makes you feel that life is about the panic and the resolution of the panic, and nothing more. Nobody stops to question whether they actually need the house and the car and the better job. And because of this there doesn't seem to be any peace; there isn't any serenity. We can't see the stars here anymore, we can't go to the beach without stepping on a Coke bottle, we can't hike in the woods, because there aren't any more woods...We drive around in a trance, salivating for Starbucks while that great heaven sits above us, and that beautiful sunrise is happening in the desert, and all those mountains out west are collecting snow on the limbs of their pines, and all those leaves are changing colors out East. God, it is so beautiful. It is so quiet. It is so perfect... [Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts]

You see why I shouldn't be reading this?

I say to a friend last night, change is my nemesis and my drug. The sure knowledge that something bigger and better is out there, over there, anywhere is what drives me. I know that God makes some people visionaries, but I also know that God makes those same people plant themselves firmly sometimes. So while I do not excuses my desire for adventure and change, I also do not deny that it makes eight month marks difficult.

I think one reason it's hard here is because I am so much of a space girl. I love mountains and water, but I do not feel hemmed in by them. Texas is big, space would not be a problem you would think, but for me, the endlessness of it feels claustrophobic at time. I feel like I need perspective.

Season and I go watch the sun set tonight and my series of photos journaling the set make the sun seem so small. But I crest the hill and there the sun is, a blazing pink orb, next to a tree 1 millionth its size, and the sun looks bigger. I just need a little perspective.

Tonight I sit here and feel the tears smart in my eyes, tangible evidence of pure self-pity. I shake myself and say, "This isn't it. And you're acting like it's it. You're acting like Texas-metroplex-landlocked-hot-suffocating-race is it and it's not. So buck up. Get some perspective."

I love the way The Message puts Isaiah 61:

"Put your face in the sunlight. God's bright glory has risen for you. The whole earth is wrapped in darkness, all people sunk in deep darkness, But God rises on you, his sunrise glory breaks over you. Nations will come to your light, kings to your sunburst brightness. Look up! Look around!"

This isn't it. Texas isn't it. New York isn't it. Tennessee isn't it. Pennsylvania isn't it. Montana isn't it. California isn't it. Europe isn't it. Canada isn't it. The globe isn't it.

The other day I heard someone say that the word Cosmos literally means Ornament. It's just decoration, just something to make the glory of God bigger and better.

And that is the only bigger and better I want to be concerned with.