"I'll Be Your Home"
A year and a half ago, I wrote the following two journal entries:
I spent the weekend helping my oldest daughter and family move into their new home. When I had to leave, I loaded my SUV… and I thought of my mama. I climbed into the seat, rolled the window down and told my daughter that I was gonna do what Gram used to do: honk the horn all the way down the road! My kids loved that and I wanted to pass that memory on to my littles. So I did. I saw my daughter and grandson running after me down the driveway... such memories! Heading down the dirt road... their home disappearing in my rearview mirror, I thought more of my mama. Did she cry when she left our house? Sometimes. It was especially hard for her to leave when she found out she would be battling cancer. I realized how my lot now was not all that different from hers. I looked over to the empty passenger seat… the seat where Ed was supposed to be sitting. And it felt so wrong… and I felt so alone. So lost. At that moment, I knew mama had felt alone at times too… such heartache that she carried for so many years. Different… but still present.
The almost two hour drive home was reflective. I drove. I thought. I cried. Repeat. Over and over, my mind would not stop. I thought about how much I miss Ed. I thought about how wrong it was that he wasn’t in the car to talk with and reminisce about endless things. We always did some of our best talking in the car! I thought about all the ache not having him here holds for me… for all of us. I thought about how our future has been demolished. Which led me to thinking about my personal future… and how ugly it looks no matter how hard I try to “pretty it up”. I have a million things I could do… only a small fraction of those thoughts do I like… and, I wonder if any of them are lucrative. My future feels destroyed before I even start. Ed is not in it. My brain was on a loop. Like our daughter, Ed is also in his new Home. The whole world goes on and I’m at a stand still. Feeling somewhat abandoned... again. And then... the thoughts start over… circling around and around with no place to go. And the tears flow again. Constant.
After the mind-numbing drive, I somehow finally turned into our driveway. Google maps gave me the usual “Welcome Home” message that I find comforting on most days. Lately, it has been a strange mixed bag… because my “home” should be with Ed and he's not here.
I sat in my beautiful leaf covered driveway amongst the tall yellow, orange, and red leaf-filled trees and tried to stop the tears. I did finally dry my eyes and set it all aside to try to deal with on another day. Oh Lord, speak to me and heal me.
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
I love that.
Home.
Three weeks later: I returned from a trip visiting my brother-in-law in NC and a friend asked me if I was glad to be home. I was taken back because of my previous trip. I was glad to be back with people I love, but I was also missing other people I love. I also still did not really feel home. Ed’s steps no longer carry him from room to room. His voice is silent here. His physical heart no longer beats within these walls. How could it fully be home without him? It can’t. It just doesn’t feel right. So no, it didn’t feel good because I was still not home.
The sun rose and set for several days. Can there be stillness within a restless heart? Because that is what it felt like. The blank air within these walls is forever empty of the breath that used to whisper in my ear how much he loves me. The breath so familiar with my neck as we would hold each other after a long, hard day. The breath that means life. Home.
I still pull in the driveway and my navigation insists, “Welcome home.” There is familiarity, of course. It looks like our home and my heart skips a beat at the sight before me. It has always been our safe place… but also it feels not safe, because Ed is still not here! The Truth I am slowly realizing though, is that Jesus makes it fully safe. Clearly, He is now the only whisperer of my ear. And I have heard Him. Abundantly.
I know without a doubt, Ed is Home. At Home with Jesus, that is. But, also, Jesus is here by my side. (Which still blows my puny mind at how that is possible!...His ways are higher. Isaiah 55:8-9) My head and heart do not know how this house will ever feel completely like home again, no matter who is within the walls. We have a missing link. But thank the Maker and Lover of my soul, the Link of Jesus is not missing!
Now, He alone is the One that whispers in my ear:
“I’ll be your Home.”
Hearing this intimate softness in my ear, doesn’t change my circumstances. It will always be painful and oftentimes riddled with question after question filled with unknown answers. Still, I am determined to reconcile my restless heart, thoughts, and emotions with the Truth. The Truth of His words. The Truth that He is my Home.
“I’ll be your Home.”
So a year plus some, after writing those journals, where does this lead me? I think we are all hardwired for Home. Not only our earthly home, that typically houses our loved ones that are “supposed” to be present within the four walls, but mostly our Jesus Home.
“For this world is not our permanent home; we are LOOKING FORWARD to a home yet to come. Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to his name.” Hebrews 13:14-15 (NLT)
And…
“Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, KEEP SEEKING the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.” Colossians 3:1-2
Looking Forward
I have been thinking the last couple of weeks how I feel like I have been circling “the mountain.” It’s like I feel stronger and have an “I can do this” mentality. It builds and builds and almost feels like I might get somewhere. But then something happens and I slip…or just plain slow down and continue circling. Round and round I go. Then I find some more faith to move even when it still doesn’t make sense and my questions have questions. And the circle continues. I recently read a chapter in Lysa TerKeurst’s book called, Forgiving What You Can’t Forget… a chapter that received LOTS of notes from my pen:
“When we don’t move forward, when we get stuck in our hurt, unable to escape the grip of that threatening pain, trauma takes root. When we keep reliving what happened in our mind over and over, we keep experiencing the trauma as if it’s happening in the present time. Time comes to a screeching halt, our hearts race with wildly unpredictable and terrifyingly uncontrollable pulses, and our brains keep sounding internal alarms that we are no longer safe. This is helpful for a time, as we need to get ourselves out of immediate danger, but remaining in this mode long term is definitely not healthy. We need to eventually move toward a state of healing, of rest. We need to eventually get to the place where we stop replaying over and over what hurts us, ‘Brain and body are programmed to run for home, where safety can be restored and stress hormones can come to rest.’”
And then I heard a sermon on Deuteronomy 34:5-8. If you want to listen to Steven Furtick's sermon, you can do that here. But I am going to summarize all the parts that spoke to me.
Moses did not come down from the mountain.
What? Here I am circling the mountain… waiting for something to improve. Waiting for Moses. But, it’s not gonna be like it was. I can keep trying to hope it will go back to the way things were. I can keep wishing it had gone differently than it did… and I do! I can keep mourning the loss of my future. But there is a moment in my life that I have to fully accept that Ed will not be coming back down the mountain. I have to reconcile my mind, because all the things are changing and God is moving me. I have to reckon with my new reality. If I stay where I am and keep circling the mountain, I will miss what God has prepared for me. He still has a plan for me… but Ed is gone. He exited. My reality has changed. The time for circling, looking for Moses to come down from the mountain… looking for a season in my life that was miraculously breathtaking but is over,... is over.
What am I moving toward?
Forward!
Trust!
Hope!
Home.
My call right now is to trust Him and put all my belief into the fact that He is not finished with ME yet. The ache will likely to some degree, always be a part of my life. My mama has been gone for seventeen years…and there is a portion of my heart that feels that sadness to this day. Though, I no longer circle the mountain for her. I looked forward and I went…whether I felt like it or not. So here I am again. With the loss of Ed. I don’t have time to wait because I know not the hour in which He will call me up the mountain.
And life is short.
And I have not yet reached Home.
“ We have a missing Moses but we have a living God.” - Steven Furtick
Keep Seeking
In Randy Alcorn’s book, Heaven, we read this;
“The Greek word translated “set your hearts on” is zeteo, which ‘denotes man’s general philosophical search or quest.’ The same word is used in the Gospels to describe how ‘the Son of Man came to seek…what was lost’ (Luke 19:10, emphasis added). It’s also used for how a shepherd looks for his lost sheep (Matthew 18:12), a woman searched for a lost coin (Luke 15:8), and a merchant searched for a fine pearl (Matthew 13:45). It is a diligent, active, single-minded investigation. So we can understand Paul’s admonition in Colossians 3:1 as follows: ‘Diligently, actively, single-mindedly pursue the things above’ – in a word, Heaven.” “The verb zeteo is in the present tense, suggesting an ongoing process. ‘Keep seeking heaven.’”
I find that inspiring. And hopeful. I don’t even know how many times I have laid my glasses or phone down somewhere. Some place that I don’t remember where, but you bet I will turn the house upside down looking for them!
I also remember one time when we first moved to our house. Our dog, Kentucky, was outside with us but he started sniffing around and slowly snuck off somewhere into the woods. It was dark. And it was snowing. I was so scared that I started to panic… afraid that he would get lost. We gathered our search crew. Ed headed south on foot and a couple of the kids headed east and north. I grabbed some treats and got in the SUV to head down the road. Crying. The search was on. I no more than started to drive, when up the driveway came Ed with Kentucky. He had wandered over to a neighbor’s house. We were blessed that we didn’t have to search long… but we were prepared to. I would have searched endlessly. Earnestly. Because that poochie means so much to me. Even more now.
Yes, Home. Keep seeking.
That’s how I need to be in my everyday life. I need to have a “keep seeking, never-ending” seeking of all the things that are above. Ongoing. Every day. I still long for my house to fully feel like home. And I could stop right there and decide it will never be that without Ed. That IS how I was feeling when I journaled the first two stories. But that is not Truth. Because if I persist actively and diligently in my single-minded seeking, (zeteo), I will have no choice but to believe I have a Home because I was made for Jesus. He IS my life and He IS my Home. So no matter where I am, I am Home.
If I believe that Jesus is my Home… then… Heaven is my Home. Setting my mind on things above includes ALL the above. Christ IS seated at the right hand of God. And what is my role in my “keep seeking? Setting my mind on those “things”... Jesus… His Word… Heaven!
How do I do that? I mine and pan for them like gold, not unlike when we were desperately searching for Kentucky on that dark and snowy night. Panning for gold takes a great deal of preparation. I need the right tools and I need to know all the best places along the riverbank. It takes a lot of grit and concentration to work at digging and digging along the rocky shore to find what I am looking for. I know in the last year and a half, I have done just that… I had that same mentality, mostly, of searching and seeking. Out of my loss, I have craved an undistracted relationship with the One who first pursued me relentlessly! His example to me… “look forward” and “keep seeking.”
“Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.” C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity pg. 118
TRAILBLAZING:
It is incredible how God can take my journals from over a year ago and plant them into my today in a very relevant way! I cannot help but praise Him! We are each called to offer up a sacrifice of praise. Raise your arms to the heavens and determine this day, to use your weapon of praise to defeat the enemy for God’s glory. And praise the One who you can call, "Home." John 14:3
Look forward and keep seeking!
Here are a couple of songs to get you started:
Thank God I Do by Lauren Daigle
Available by Live Elevation Worship
First Love by Kari Jobe
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