Leaving the Place That Shaped Me, Trusting the God Who Led Me

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She had spent months slowly counting down the days till she would have to say goodbye. Slowly counting down the memories, moments, and time left until the time arrived.

Even though there had been 39 weeks, 273 days, 6,570 hours, and 394,200 minutes for her to prepare, she still hadn’t been prepared to feel such a loss.

As she stood still in a room so empty that it made her breathing echo, the young woman held back her tears as she noted the strange yellow stain on the ceiling and then the cracked drywall that was causing dust to fall onto the creaky floorboards. 

Gently, her fingers glided across the smooth white wall that was closer to gray, stained from the lives that had lived in this home before her. They fell to her side as her blue eyes met the bay window, the feature of the house that made her want to claim the place as her own. 

The room had claimed so many late nights- working on projects, laughing with long-distance friends, movie nights, and late-night chats. This was the room where she read, learned, and prayed to God. 

This was the room where she began to explore what their relationship looked like — where she could let her walls down and let Him see who she really was.

After a long while, she opened the creaky door that would never stay shut. Teary-eyed, she stood in the door frame which led into the rose red and tan colored living room, soaking in the nice furniture that was her roommate’s. In that moment, another little piece of her cracked as she had always hoped that she’d get to say goodbye to this little run-down apartment with her roommate. 

For a moment longer, the brunette soaked in the school like ceiling tiles and how the paint was chipping off the walls. Her mind wandered back to all the late nights with her friends watching movies, the Mario Party nights with her roommate, and the long Bible studies that the two had. 

How thankful she was in that moment that God had blessed her with such a beautifully fun roommate that she got to talk about Jesus with. How many long laughs that the two had in the strangely small living space that she would dearly miss. The empty room then got filled with her friend’s presence with a soft creak of the oak floorboards, and her blue eyes met her friend’s green ones.

It was time.

Time to say goodbye.

Silently, the two moved towards the kitchen, the dark brown walls, the green counters, and the very crooked floor filled her sight as she looked around. 

The kitchen that held so many Jesus jam sessions and dance parties with her roommate. So many conversations and tears where the two had talked about their dreams, futures, and curiosities about where God would take them. 

It was the room where she had made many new friends through filming a mayo commercial. The young woman would dearly miss how the floor was so loud that it could wake someone up. She stood there for a few moments before asking her friend if the two of them could go and pray over the five rooms that made up the house. 

The two started with the bathroom, then moved to the living room, her roommate’s bedroom, and then her room. They took their time as she prayed to God about whatever was on her heart, part of her was trying to avoid the inevitable.

Sooner or later, the two had made their way back into the large kitchen where she spoke her final prayer that she would ever pray in that house. 

As she finished praying, the tears that had been welling up in her eyes for the last fifteen minutes began to fall, knowing that her time in that house was up.

Her hands trembled as she struggled to get the key that was used to unlock the front door off its chain. The more she struggled, the more the tears fell because she knew she was saying goodbye to the house that had become a home in the last three years. 

And while the curly-haired woman knew that a house was just walls and windows, she felt like she was saying goodbye to the memories that had made that house a home. 

It was the house where she had come to Christ, where she had made so many new friends, and gotten to experience so many things that morphed her into the woman she now was. It wasn’t the walls that she was going to miss; it was the people, moments, and relationships that had developed because God had placed her in that house. 

That house was a small glimpse of the season of life that she had gone through, which was now coming to a close. With a sunken heart, she set the house key onto the green countertop and made her way to the front door. 

With the softest click, she closed the door to her home one last time.

© Sierra Loew; UW Stout 2025 Graduate