You can take a girl out of Kansas, but you can’t take Kansas out of the girl. When I moved to Iowa, I got digs all the time about how boring Kansas was. I got all worked up about it, which made the digs worse.

I’m done getting worked up about it now, but I still miss Kansas like crazy. The gorgeous sunsets we watched every night on the farm. The sunflowers bobbing by the dirt road and the golden wheat fields touching the enormous blue sky in the summer.

What I wouldn’t give to go take a walk on a flat dirt road in the middle of nowhere. I dreamed so many dreams under the thunderhead clouds, lying in fields of wildflowers. I feel like I’m describing Anne of Green Gables right now. But that was life. I prayed so many prayers. Made so many stories up in my head.

I used to dream about showing off my home to some guy who loved me. When I brought Nate home to meet my family I felt so tense – wanting him to like Kansas and love my family, and wanting my family to like him. It may not have gone as well as I hoped, but 4 years later Nate loves going home with me as much as I love going home to Wisconsin with him.

Two things I used to mull over about living for God. Was it okay to love life and just enjoy myself in its beauty? Also, was it worth it to work so hard in life? As a leader by nature, I don’t like to waste my time if something isn’t worth it. And as a responsibility freak, I worry that enjoying something means I’m not working hard enough.

The night God showed me the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, I literally laughed out loud. He answered my questions in these verses:

What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

A friend once gave me a note with this quote on it:
Life doesn’t have to be easy to be wonderful.

There is freedom in that truth! Life can be wonderful. There is beauty and wonder in the gifts God gives us every day if we only stop to thank him for them. Life is hard. But God is near.

I’ve since grown to love Iowa but am thankful to understand that I can choose contentment no matter where God transplants me.