home

I've been thinking about home a lot lately. I live in my hometown. My grandma lives 2 blocks up the street. One aunt lives about a block away. Other aunts/uncles/cousins live about a mile away. My parents and brothers are just up the road. The Piggly Wiggly down the street smells like my childhood. Cheers from the ballpark where I played for years as a child can be heard just outside my front door. Everything here is familiar to me. It is blessed and it is good.

I never thought I'd be back here. I never thought my post-grad life would involve hopping over to my parents to feed their dogs and chickens when they're out of town. I didn't know where I would go, but I just always assumed it wouldn't be back here.

But I am grateful for this time. I'm grateful for being back. I'm grateful for my family and the fact that I can go to lunch with my dad or shop with my mom on a whim. At least one meal a week is over at mom and dad's and it is comfortable, familiar and safe. Again, blessed and good.

So why do I long for somewhere new? We both long for it. How can the need for exploring, fresh starts, and new faces so deeply coexist with the need for roots, community, and home? We believe in all of those things so strongly but at this point they feel so conflicting.

A word I use a lot lately is "unsettled." It is how I describe my heart-place right now. The Lord provides comfort and peace each day if I am humble enough to seek Him in that. It is enough for each day. So I can't help but believe that if I am asking for his clarity, his help, more of Him each day, and I still have this "unsettled" feeling in my gut, that it might be from Him as well. He could have a purpose for that too. I don't know that for sure...but I'm just thinking through it.

I believe these thoughts and questions of a conflicting and unsettled heart speak to our eternity. Our forever need for home and safety and love. When we feel "at home" it means that we are accepted and loved. I firmly believe that all acceptance and everything that is good and fulfilling to our hearts can be found in Christ. No matter where we live, or how comfortable I deem our home to be, his humble grace and love towards my nasty ugliness is where I find "home."