Tag Archives: home

She’s home!

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I knew it wasn’t going to be a very restful night for me. It’s not that I was worried, just waiting. My youngest was on her way home from spring break, traveling with her friend and her parents all the way home, straight through.

They weren’t due in until around six a.m. and so, in typical mom fashion, just about every two hours I turned over and checked the clock, said a prayer and tried to go back to sleep.  It was a long night!

When I heard the door shut just before 6, I jumped out of bed, grabbed my bathrobe and hurried to the kitchen to hug my girl. She’s home! Thank you, God.

It’s always been that way during my years as a mommy: if any of the girls were out I couldn’t sleep deeply until they were in the house. There’d be one thing on my mind ’til they came in: their safe return.  Moms out there, I’m sure you can relate! 

As I was thinking about this this morning while eating breakfast, I heard God tell me that is how eager, anxious, even desperate He is for all his kids to come home, to be in His house, in His arms.

Remember the story of the prodigal son? And how the father stood day after day looking down the road toward the horizon, hoping to see the silhouette of his rogue, wayward son coming back to him? 

What if all of us who are already “safe” at home with God shared his inextinguishable compassion and consuming desperation for our brothers and sisters still “out there” to come home?

I know whenever He hears one of them coming in, He runs to them to wrap them in a huge hug, His heart nearly bursting with joy as He smiles broadly, saying, “you’re home!”

God, stir in me a restlessness for those who aren’t home yet. Help me know how to call them, show then the way to You.

When he (the lost son) was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him.   Luke 15:20 MSG

Sometimes the grass is greener in the past

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When Kimmi first went to college, the school advised the students to stay on campus once classes started for at least six weeks before going home for a visit.  The purpose behind that recommendation is that it helps them engage with the other students and the college community as well as cutting ties with home a bit (getting used to being away from home).  I think it’s a great idea and though it was a hard adjustment at first (probably harder for me than for her), it did help Kimmi step into the college phase of her life more on her own.  She began “leaving” the phase of life she had with us at home – an important, necessary step to growing up.

When first away at school it might be easy for kids to keep wanting to go home and be in the familiar, comfortable situation they just came from.  Looking back, the grass might seem greener at home in the past where their high school friends lived, where they were comfortable in a home church and so on.  If they’ll turn around and look forward, however, step out and give it time, they find that independence, new friendships, experiences, possibilities and more can become their new “normal” and be pretty exciting.   They can change and grow, becoming more and more of who they are meant to be.  The world opens up in new ways that they wouldn’t have known if they went back and stayed at home.

I realize that sometimes when I look back the grass looks greener in the past.  This past weekend we went “home” to Indiana to attend our college homecoming weekend, see our college girls, and attend church where we did when we lived there.  We saw many old friends, enjoyed beautiful sunny fall weather, were blessed by a moving, encouraging worship service at church, and spent some really good quality time with our daughters.

John and I both agreed today that a little part of ourselves felt like it would be nice to go back there to stay.  It was comfortable there for us in many ways and we have lots of dear friends there.  We fit in and knew our place.  We have a lot of history there, too, all the way back to before we got married so of course it feels like home.

If I am honest when I look back though, Continue reading →

Walking in the real world

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Have you ever tried on those fun, special effect glasses that when you wear them every light looks like a star or snowflake, or words appear?  Our girls had some when they were little.  They made everything look sparkly and magical.   Have you seen a movie wearing 3D glasses?  It seems every other movie that comes out is in 3D now.  John and I saw Avatar in 3D and it really did make it more lifelike and beautiful.  If you take the 3D glasses off it’s a double image and blurry – you could watch it that way but I think a headache would follow. Continue reading →

Processing

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The cold I’ve been fighting is of the obstinate, lingering kind and so I’ve not felt like blogging or doing much conversing for the last week or so.  That is definitely NOT usually my nature.  I’m a verbal processor to the core.  I need to talk to people when I’m working through thoughts, making decisions, questioning and trying to figure something out, brainstorming -you name it, I need to talk about it.  Continue reading →

Dreams on the back burner

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She opened her purse and pulled out a kleenex, dabbing her eyes as she admitted disappointment. “I just feel like my soul is unsettled”, she shared. I can relate to this heartache in a way because we are in a very similar situation. I have a feeling there are more people in this boat with us than we realize, considering the current economic nightmare our country is trudging through. We own a house in the city we left to move here and are in the process of trying to rent it to someone…again. In the meantime we rent a townhouse, which is nice, in a safe, quiet neighborhood, fairly reasonable in price and adequate space for our family and two fur-balls we call pets. Deep in my heart is the dream that someday we’ll have our own place, and all our stuff will be in one place. We’ll have more room to have friends in and can really settle in. We’ll have a yard and a garage and on it goes. My friend is in this same boat – she and her husband own a home and can’t sell it. Meanwhile they’re living with family here. We both admitted we have more than we need but we can’t shake the dream of each being settled in a place of our own.

ist2_2936389-young-couple-dreaming-about-a-houseI don’t really know how to let go of this dream. It’s a daily process – trying to remain content and thankful and focus on other things. It’s interesting the things that make us feel settled in our hearts and souls: having a permanent residence, all belongings moved in and in their places, a steady job, a routine we’re used to, comfort zone stuff. Vice versa, temporary situations, not having all your belongings accessible to you, lots of change, living with someone else and feeling like you’re an outsider – like it’s not really your home – all of these seem to keep the contentedness of heart at bay. There seems to be a longing inside most of us to have a place, to have a home, to be settled down.

Maybe that’s why we feel so unsettled in this life. Continue reading →