Today in church my name was included with a few of the families who have been called to various and sundry places. We are all leaving this summer. Each of us, in our own ways, have been counting down the Sundays until we each have met our respective last. It's hard. And I know that this is home, that everyone should call this place home for a season of their lives. And I know that perhaps you're thinking I'm biased, but I'm not. Really. I know that there is a part of me that knows I'll be back, how could I not? But today in church as the offering was being passed and we sung these words, I knew that something more than this being home would be the thing which brings me back:
Here my heart is stilled.
Here my joy is filled.
Here I know who I am meant to be.
I'm home.
A few days ago I wrote about where home was, or should be. But I'm not sure I knew it then as fully as I did today, the corners of my eyes filling and the corners of my heart swelling. Home is not, can not, be the place we feel the most comfortable, like my pale green bedroom. Home cannot be a well read and dogeared book in which we've underlined our favorite parts, like my copy of A Two-Part Invention. Home will never be true if it only serves us our favorite meals, launders our clothes, and provides us shelter.
No. Today I knew that this place, my own town, my house, my bedroom, my own person, none of it is home. What is home is that place I was in during offering. My head in my hands and my heart humbled by God's goodness, His abounding greatness, and I was home.
This tangible home draws out that intangible home. The spirit which inhabits my heart inhabits this place. There is an overwhelming desire to come back here, back home, but more than that there is the knowledge that the Lord has good things in store for my life. One of them will be the constant awareness that wherever I am will be home because I will have the opportunity to be challenged, stretched, humbled, stilled, and filled if I abide in His spirit.
I'll take off tomorrow for my new job at a wilderness camp, post a sporatic entry if I have time, come home for a few days, and then leave for Tennessee for a few years. I say I'll be back, but even if I'm not, please know that I'm home and my heart is filled. The Lord is faithful to take care of that.
Here my heart is stilled.
Here my joy is filled.
Here I know who I am meant to be.
I'm home.
A few days ago I wrote about where home was, or should be. But I'm not sure I knew it then as fully as I did today, the corners of my eyes filling and the corners of my heart swelling. Home is not, can not, be the place we feel the most comfortable, like my pale green bedroom. Home cannot be a well read and dogeared book in which we've underlined our favorite parts, like my copy of A Two-Part Invention. Home will never be true if it only serves us our favorite meals, launders our clothes, and provides us shelter.
No. Today I knew that this place, my own town, my house, my bedroom, my own person, none of it is home. What is home is that place I was in during offering. My head in my hands and my heart humbled by God's goodness, His abounding greatness, and I was home.
This tangible home draws out that intangible home. The spirit which inhabits my heart inhabits this place. There is an overwhelming desire to come back here, back home, but more than that there is the knowledge that the Lord has good things in store for my life. One of them will be the constant awareness that wherever I am will be home because I will have the opportunity to be challenged, stretched, humbled, stilled, and filled if I abide in His spirit.
I'll take off tomorrow for my new job at a wilderness camp, post a sporatic entry if I have time, come home for a few days, and then leave for Tennessee for a few years. I say I'll be back, but even if I'm not, please know that I'm home and my heart is filled. The Lord is faithful to take care of that.
2 comments:
sigh...
yes... you me me cry
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