Sometimes I grow weary of the journey.

Even when it's a place I really wanted to go. Like when my husband and I went on our honeymoon. We decided we would take a road trip up the coast and back down, stopping at different places along the way. The first day our journey was 3.5 hours to wine country, we stayed one night. The next day we made our way to Big Sur, which was another 3 hours. We stayed there for two nights and then drove to Santa Barbara to stay one night. Even though I enjoyed seeing everything up and down the coast. I got really sick of packing and unpacking and driving for hours at a time. By the end of the trip I was ready to go to my new house and start making it into our home.

Growing up my sister and I lived with my great aunt (Nan) and great uncle (Pa).  I remember my mom lived there too on many occasions. She was always there when we were really young because she was still our legal caretaker. My nan and pa’s home was our home. When I was around age 4 we moved out to live with my mom’s boyfriend.  

I was devastated.

I especially remember when they took my bed.

“Home" was being taken from me.

Later, we moved back and my nan and pa became our legal guardians. We lived in that house for 11 more years. That was my home.

There's something about home isn't there?

A place that's warm and cozy.

A place you can return to after a long day at work or school.

A place where people know you, love you and that you belong.

A place you long for when you're on a trip.

The place where your bed is.

That first night back in your own bed is always the best. It feels familiar and dreamlike. Like you've never left and like you've been gone far too long all at once.

When I was age 15 my nan died. She had many health problems and took a lot of medication, but none were life threatening that we knew of. One night she was acting sort of in a daze and just slipped off to bed without saying goodnight.  At about 4 am my sister was screaming in my ear to wake up. We ran upstairs to see my nan had fallen and hit her head on the bathroom wall. She passed away on the ambulance ride to the hospital. 6 months passed and then my pa had a minor stroke and another more serious one in the hospital. After 3 months of hospitalization and rehab he came home. Sort of. Then through a series of events he and his soon-to-be-wife chose to sell the house. Our home.

The worst year of my life.

When I was 12 I recall sitting on my bed thinking of some of the friends I had who spent their childhood moving from one place to another. I thought of a girl at school who lost her home in a fire and all the people who don't have homes at all. I thought: I would hate to be one of those people. I liked feeling safe and comfortable and taken care of.  Who doesn’t?

While they were selling the house, we moved in with my grandma. Then a year later we move out with my Aunt Laurie. After that we moved back in with my grandma. My sister moved to San Diego with my Aunt Laurie later that year. I stayed with my grandma as long as I could, but my grandma’s house was going to be foreclosed. So, I moved into a studio apartment. I rented a house with a friend after about a year and a half. Then I lived with my best friends mom for 6 months.

After our honeymoon, I was finally going home.

It felt like the promised land.

Maybe you've felt like you don't have a place you belong.

Like you don't have a place where you're loved and accepted for who you are.

Like there's no comfy bed to go home to.

I also wonder if you've ever been on a trip and longed for home.

That feeling of longing can lead us to many things:

Unhealthy relationships, partying, bars, addictions, sex, a spouse, family, friends, books, video games. I don't know what you try to fill yourself with to fulfill your longing for home. But I do know that longing is a very strong feeling.  Notice how not all of those things on the list are bad things, but none of those things can ever truly fill us, not completely, not forever.

I longed for a home for so long and finally found it.

What I had forgotten in my longing is that home is not necessarily a house or a bed. 

My sister sent me this ^ after reading my blog. It was too perfect not to add it.  <3

One day as I contemplated moving from our home I realized I feared moving.

Still.

Moving felt like the pain I'd endured as a preschooler as my bed was taken. It felt like being tossed from place to place as a teen, after enduring tragedy.

It felt like chaos.

Like hopelessness.

Like being left alone with no bed.

God gently spoke to me in this moment of fear and anxiety. 

He said, your home is with me. 

I took a deep breath.

Peace.

In a literal sense our home is and was always supposed to be with Jesus in eternity. There's a very real longing for home in us because there's a longing to be with Jesus.  The Bible says that he has “set eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

In another sense wherever God takes us on the earth, wherever he calls us, He will be there.  He does not leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).  It doesn’t mean he always calls us to the safe or the comfortable, but it does mean we will always find a home in him.  Heaven isn't just some place in the sky that we go when we die (That rhymed. Unintentional. [for the Hot Rod fans]). Heaven is all around us. When we choose to love others, choose to live our lives for Jesus, we bring heaven. Heaven is a real place, but the kingdom of heaven is also wherever the king is. Wherever his kingdom is being brought.

So, I choose to hold fast to Jesus, not a physical house or building. I choose to believe Jesus is not in a temple, a church, or a house. That's why the veil was torn on the day of Jesus' crucifixion, to prove that God doesn't dwell in a temple any more, but in the hearts of his people.

Jesus is where his people are.

My home is with Jesus. 

And let’s not forget what Jesus said in Matthew 8:20:

"Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

Jesus didn't have a bed. He didn't have a "home" while he was doing ministry. His home was with the father. If I'm following Jesus then I will not always have physical comfort. Jesus didn't. He relied on the kindness of others as he loved them and ministered to them.

I knew that when I had kids I didn't want them to go through what I went through. I wanted them to have both parents, to feel safe, to have a home.  But, something I've come to realize: you can't always choose the path your life takes. However, you can choose to follow the God who loves you, no matter the path he takes you on.  

Not to say I’ve achieved this faith or trust thing.  I still cling to home, to comfort.  But I’m choosing to try following Jesus wherever he takes me and trusting that he will give me the feeling of home my heart desires.  I’m going to open my hands and start letting anything that is not from him fall out.

Are you holding too tightly to something?

What do you need to let tumble to the ground?

Let’s trust that Jesus will be enough to fill all of our longing as we keep traveling this journey. 

I’ll end us with some words from Jesus.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28

One More Step

I don't know if you ever experience emptiness. Like you feel that what you're striving toward is just not the adventure you'd hoped your life would be. Sometimes I do.  Not that I don't love my husband, my kids, my family and friends, because I do, very much. And I also know that I am to love them and serve them. I am also not trying to underplay the role of being a parent, because to be honest parenting has been one of the most difficult things God has called me to so far.  


But it still feels like something's missing when I get wrapped up in living my own life, when I get stuck in a routine, when life is all about me and my family or my circle of people.

I get stuck.

I get stagnant.

I get bored... complacent. 

COMPLACENT

I hate that word. I especially hate that word when it comes to myself.

I like to think:

I serve, 

I help, 

I give,

I sacrifice. 

I like to think that I'm moving forward in my growth, in this journey. But the truth is when I feel a step of faith coming, I shudder. I become frozen with fear. 

Uh... FEAR

What if I make the wrong step? 

What if I go the wrong way? 

What if this isn't Gods plan for me? 

What if he gets angry that I made a mistake? 

As if missteps aren't part of following Him. But instead of stepping out into the unknown or failing, I choose to stick by what I know, what's comfortable. It's easier that way isn't it? Staying with the people you know? The things you know? The place you know? It's scary to go some place new with no one or nothing we know. Even if what we are leaving behind is really bad or dysfunctional. 




When I think about it I've learned a lot about taking faith steps from my 1 year old.  She would step fall. Step, step, fall.  And then one day she didn't fall all the way down the hallway.  Sometimes she would trip, fall, bang her head and cry.  Then I'd comfort her and she'd get up and do it again.  Now I swear she runs and it seems like I can't keep up with her.  All because she tried to take that first step.  I doubt it was comfortable to fall.

  

Those who have adventure are those 

who choose to GO despite their discomfort. 

You know before Jesus ascended to heaven he said something similar:

“GO and make disciples of ALL nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” ~Matthew 28:19

Notice how he says we have to actually GO somewhere. We cannot stay where we are and also go do what he's asked. It implies action. We don't have to go overseas to share with others, but we do have to go somewhere: to the homeless man outside Stater Bros, to the single mom struggling next door, to the the annoying (possibly crazy) old lady that lives across the street, to the cranky complaining co-worker. We need to GO outside of our circle, to those on the outskirts, the ones we don't feel comfortable with. You know who it is for you. 

If we as the church don't follow this call and are not being the church, then who will? Do we think the pastors and missionaries will do it for us? If so, then we will miss out on all the fullness this adventure we call life is meant to be. We will be living in disobedience.  Sort of like Jonah.  If you don't know the story it goes like this: 

God tells Jonah to GO to Ninevah and tell them they're living in sin and that God is going to punish them.  Jonah says NO! and runs the opposite way.  Well to be precise, he jumps on a boat and sails away.  Then God causes a storm all around the boat. Jonah tells the people on the boat to throw him overboard because God is causing the storm.  They throw him overboard.  He gets swallowed by a fish. ( I know right?) Then the fish spits him out in the same place God called him the first time.  God tells him GO. So he goes, sort of. He prophesies on the outskirts of the city, but somehow the word gets all the way to the king and the whole town fasts and repents and grieves that they were so far away from God.  God spares them.  


I think I'd rather go the first time rather than face all the consequences that complacency brings. But...

If we GO

It won't be safe. 

It won't be comfortable.

It will definitely come with: 

failure 

risk 

and lots of heartache and pain. 

But do we really want to live comfortable, safe lives, when Jesus has an amazing adventure waiting for us? 

I've decided that I don't want to live it safe anymore. 

I want to follow Jesus wherever he takes me. 

I want to be filled to the brim. 

I don't want to feel empty, or like something's missing anymore. 

So I'm ready to take my next scary faith step into the unknown.

And if we're a follower of Jesus let's not forget:

Jesus was on the outskirts.  

He never fit what everyone thought someone "religious" should look like. He hung out with all the crazies. All the "extra grace required."  He served those people. He healed them. He loved them with abandon. 

And then He was crucified (with the support of many of those he served) on the outskirts of town. That's where the trash was.  The murderers. The lepers. Jesus was taken outside of town.  

If he was willing to live and die on the outskirts. Shouldn't we as his followers be willing to do the same?  

I don't know what that step looks like for you. Maybe there was something you felt he called you to a long time ago, but because of hurt you took the safe way. Or maybe he asked you to do something and through justification you thought, that wasn't really God, that was just me. Or maybe you don't really care much about God but you've felt his nudge a long time ago to give your life to him, but you chose to keep going your own way. 

Maybe now is the time for that first step of faith. The first step to the crazy God-sized life you've always wanted. One that you will never get bored with.

Remember God is always calling us to one more step. 

To hand over a little more of ourselves. 

And he always has so much more for us then we can even think or imagine!

Are you ready to run into the life that God has for you?