The last few months had taken its toll on Sierra. She’d been through so much, in so little time, and yet somehow had made it through with her mind still intact. She’d left her family and home, moved across country to help a friend escape some very dangerous people who had harmed them both in the process of helping her friend, and just when she thought things couldn’t get worse or scarier, her friend began acting strangely, behaving as though Sierra was one of her perpetrators. Sierra had done all she could to help Hope, but in the end, she realized that Hope’s situation wouldn’t change if she didn’t make concrete efforts to change it. Hope had begun being verbally abusive towards Sierra and she found herself constantly arguing with Hope over minor things. Sierra couldn’t understand what was happening. They had been best friends for over 10 years and now things were falling apart. Sierra made the difficult choice to leave Hope behind and find a new place to live; a place she’d never been, where no one else would know her. A place where she could start over and live the life she knew God had for her. She didn’t know what He had in store, but she knew staying with Hope would only cause more harm than good for them both. It was time to move on. That is how she landed in Minnesota.
It didn’t take long for Sierra to make a decision. She knew she couldn’t go back home because she may be risking the lives of her family if the dangerous people were still after her for helping Hope. So she prayed and asked God where she should go. After doing some research online, she found that the job market was good in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota. She’d researched the jobs in ND and came to the decision quickly that this was not the place for her, after being offered a place to live for a week in a random stranger’s car. Williston, she thought, a young woman, all alone in a place like that is likely to end up kidnapped, tortured, and killed in some psycho’s basement! No, Williston, ND was not an option. Instead, she applied for an apartment in Sioux Falls, SD and another in Minneapolis, MN and said, “OK, Lord. It’s up to You. I will move to whichever place comes back first accepting my application.” A day or two later, Minneapolis won out and she was packed and driving on the road within a few hours.
Those last few hours of packing and telling Hope she was leaving had been one of the hardest things Sierra had ever done. She was not a quitter and she was loyal to a fault. In the past, Sierra had told Hope that it didn’t matter who was after her, or what they had done to them both, because she wouldn’t let them win by giving up on Hope. Yet, here she was, telling Hope that she couldn’t take the arguing anymore and the accusations. Here she was, doing what she disliked the most: admitting that she couldn’t fix it! But that was the truth and as much as she hated it, she knew that it had to be done. She didn’t cave into the cries and the pleas that things would change. In fact, it was in this moment that Sierra had realized that her friendship with Hope had somehow morphed into an abusive relationship in which Sierra had become the emotionally battered person. How was this even possible?, she had thought to herself.
So here she was, in a dangerous part of town, living in a studio apartment with her cat. Sierra had come to enjoy her alone time and was proud of her accomplishment. She had left Washington, moved half-way across country alone, and was living in a place where she didn’t know a soul. For Sierra, this was a giant step of faith. But she knew that it was only by God’s grace that she was still here, and moving in the direction God had for her. She recalled a verse she had recently read in her devotions: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). She pondered this verse and wondered if she had lived up to the requirement of God. She had done all she could for Hope. She attempted to help her escape the people who were trying to kill her, she had worked with her to help her get free from the emotional scars of her tortured childhood and adulthood, and she had tried to support her, even when Hope began to turn on her. She had been both just and kind to Hope, albeit to an unhealthy fault, which is what Sierra had begun to realize.
Sierra pondered whether or not she had walked humbly with God. She recognized that at times she had, but for the most part, Sierra had taken things into her own hands. She had been the one trying to rescue Hope, instead of God taking care of her. She had walked in her own pride by not telling her family what was really going on, and lying about where she was going. She had done so much wrong in all of this, and now she was in an emotionally broken place. Perhaps this is what it meant to walk humbly with her God. She now understood that she didn’t have the ability to fix things, and she had to rely on Him alone to make things right. It would not be easy to hand things over to God, but Sierra knew that this was the first step in allowing God to move in her life. She would wait on Him, knowing that He has a great plan for her life, and she couldn’t wait to see what He has in store.