Two years ago, in the midst of a sweltering Oklahoman summer, I packed a suitcase and moved to Chicago. Bent on finding those dreams everyone kept talking about, I did not have a plan. I had a gut feeling and a pair of tap shoes. After that, there was no other choice but to have faith. Raised in a Catholic household, from day one I was taught that life would bring hardships but, with God on my side, I would not face them alone. Challenges had come my way before but this move would prove the biggest test yet.

 
It was the little things.

My roommates had done something I didn’t like, the train smelled like unwashed bodies again, or I could not see the stars in the night sky. During my first year in a new city the little things would seem monumental. There were many days I would question that gut feeling that gave me the courage to make the move in the first place. There were many more days I was sure Chicago would never be my real home.
Having faith without a home to house it, without a community to guide it, makes it that much harder to maintain purpose. I was without the roots of my real home. I wanted to go back to where it had been comfortable. I wanted it so desperately I can still remember the thousands of times I replaced the words “have faith” with “I can’t anymore. I give up”.
It was after a particularly bad day. Fresh from a double shift at my second job. I had sprawled on the floor and started making a mental list of my most recent woes. My feet hurt, I hadn’t had a day off in months, and was all of this struggle really worth the end reward? I sat like that for a while and listened to the muffled noises floating through my window as the complaints grew less frequent. Eventually, they quieted and I became aware that I was having one of those precious moments of peace. That’s the beautiful thing about God, if we can find our way through the muck of our minds we are often granted a little clarity.
There it was again, “have faith” whispered repeatedly in the quietest parts of my mind. Daily life offered reminders, manifesting in my mother’s voice or my father’s laugh in the background of a phone call, and again in my sister’s soft groan as she relayed her homework load to me. It would come in the form of a stranger’s smile or an unexpected star in a sky full of muffled grays. After that day, I pushed myself to find that awareness again and in each moment the task becomes a bit easier. Catholicism has always been a part of my identity. No matter where I went, my faith followed. Having faith has become my lifeline. Allowing me to stay in hope, in light, and in truth. It is these things, that are God, and in these things I found home.
Eventually, I built a community in Chicago. I think I expected to be comfortable, to consist of people who would allow me to float along happily towards the end of my life without many thought-provoking narratives. Instead, my community challenges me, excites me, and asks me to explore the world with an open heart and mind.

 
Change is universal. For as long as we live we will have to find ourselves in whatever situation we end up and we will have to pull the truest parts of who we are through the lowest parts of the earth and remain whole. And we can. All we have to do is have faith.