Peace, Walk, Now: Chapter 9, Cont.

We left off as I was being vacated from a man-made island on the border of Los Angeles and Ventura County and asking for a miracle to guide my next steps.

[Read Peace, Walk, Now: Chapter 9, The Original Algorithm]

When Marsha told me she wanted her guest room back, I didn’t know where I would go. But, let’s face it, I wasn’t exactly pity-able, was I?

Nope! No pity parties allowed on my end.

I had been traveling to yoga ashrams, was being invited to brunches in super wealthy communities, meeting kind strangers who adopted me as their family, and living on a man-made island that had its own security checkpoint.

It often felt like God was laughing, quietly saying, “You have it good, Nadia, really, really good.”

I found this curious. I would have gratefully stayed with any friend who would have extended the invitation. But no one else did. Just Marsha. And of course, Alice, who already showed me that “something else” is possible. [Read Peace, Walk Now: Chapter 5, Something Else]

Okay, Karen too, but she had moved to Iowa—and as I told Alice, the Iowa thing didn’t work out. (Turns out Iowa is harder to get to from Anchorage than Boulder, Colorado.)

But honestly, it was excruciating waiting around at the gate repeatedly for Marsha to return the call from security so they could let me back in. I didn’t know what to do with my physical self while I waited. There have been many times like this in my life, when I wished that I could simply disappear.

Yet this was the time in life to stop making these sort of wishes. This was the time in life to take a stand in my faith in the “something else” that Holy Sprit is capable of.

And then something else happened again.

I informed the family I was nannying part-time for that I would soon be unhoused and unable to continue my employment with them.

“You can stay in our spare bedroom,” Melissa said quickly. “No one sleeps in it except the dogs. I’ll get you a new mattress.”

This was truly unexpected. I only worked for her two days a week. Now she was offering to continue to pay me for these two days and give me a place to live. I was speechless.

“Umm,” she said, back-tracking a beat, “I need to confirm with my husband and we will need an extended background and DMV check.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

This moment felt impossible.

I thought I was about to fall into the abyss. Then the Original Algorithm caught me.

I’m writing this to plainly state that I no longer put my faith in falling or in abysses. Where we put our faith—our beliefs, our willingness to entertain ideation—is an act of querying the algorithm of all possibilities and asking it to deliver the very thing we expect to happen.

I made a choice to put my faith in the Holy Spirit catching me.

Over and over and over again.