There Will Be a Place For You

It was a promise I have held onto. It came from Carmen, who I have approached in the midst of many crises. Her magnanimity is inimitable.

This summer, I didn't know where I would live, but I knew that my church community and family would be able to make space for me. My friends on Plum Street let me stay there; my friends on Clay Street let me stay there; a few other places were possible. Carmen said as I returned from Morocco, "There will be a place for you."

A few weeks later, Sarah announced that she was moving down the street as a more permanent place to live (weddings were impending), and would I like my old room back? I said yes. The weddings didn't bother me; they seemed a long way away. But if we've spoken within the past four months, you know that wedding planning and weddings are what's been happening since August. Carmen's is under two weeks away.

The details will bore me now to write, but for a while I wondered if I would have to move out of Plum Street. Again, Carmen said it in a morning conversation, "There will be a place for you," with such confidence, like the eldest of three sisters that she is. When someone says it like that, you need to believe them.

A few other people I like were looking for roommates, but I hated the idea of moving all my things, which balloon up when I settle for more than a month, and I cherished a hope that there would be a person wanting to move here. I didn't have a second choice for a roommate, just the first choice, and she came to live here in January!

Change is always on the horizon. I want to at least believe the promise of a place for me, but I also want it to extend to you, and to people at their wit's end; to people returning from somewhere; to people estranged from loved ones. There will be a place for you. I pray it now, and proclaim it: there will be a place for you.