On Finding Home

Tonight as I sit here, I must hold back the tears.

We are all dozen in a room and it has been awhile. We are singing praises to Jesus. He strokes the guitar and the little boy squirms across my lap. Little fingers twist my hair and those little toes with dirt infested beneath the nail lock close to mine. I squeeze him tight and I know Jesus is here. The babies are dumping towers of blocks across the floor. It makes a big bang as it crashes over the wood. There is pushing and tears and little guy screams.

He just keeps strumming and oh, how his voice draws me back.

As I hum along to the words so foreign I can barely contain myself.

Memories flood—the bad of the past so contrasted against this moment here and now. Nights of yelling and cussing and kicking and running. Nights locked behind a door so entangled and trapped and dark. Nights of horror movies and love scenes. Nights accompanied by the TV and microwave dinners. Lifetime helped me dream happy endings. Nights of roaches and gun-shots. Nights of innocence dissolving and childhood ending. There just weren't ever nights like this right here and now growing up. I get lost here and I feel all the ugly conceive and begin to birth all over again. Sin surfaces high as my throat.

Then his glance my direction pulls me out of the darkness and the light is just so incredibly light.

And so I close my eyes and soak it up and I feel Him giving me back my childhood nights, redeeming them in some weird way. But it is Him doing it and I don't deserve it.

His fingers across that guitar strum grace right into my bones and I feel the cistern being sealed. 

My steady flow interrupted as he asks us to recall times in scripture where God acted immediately. Like Philip dissolving into space after baptizing the Enoch and Christ walking on water and demons launching pigs over the cliff and even sending a wife to water the camels. Sometimes, he told us, God is quick to answer our prayers and quick to confirm our decisions. Other times, we don't know that we made the right decision for awhile, we don't always see an immediate answer. Like when Christ promises He is coming back—oh we can be sure He is. It just hasn't happened yet.

He read Psalm 150 which talks about praising the Lord...with lute and harp. (As Hannah is strumming her new harp!) Let everything that has breath, in fact, praise the Lord! So we praised as blocks collided with the floor and lil guys jumped off furniture. A year ago I was yet to even glimpse such a life, such a home, such a moment.

Unlike Philip disappearing in a blink, home has taken time for me—it has been much more a promise not yet seen. 

But tonight, tonight I realize I may be a Philip in flight, but my home is sure. My home is here and yet not. So for now, this place where we sing loud and blocks plummet with a crash and little boys snuggle--it is drenched in grace and dripping mercy, something I don't deserve and never foresaw but completely Jesus, completely where He wants me and a complete promise of home that is coming.

Home is the heart and the people and memories--but it's more.

What a gracious God, to ordain decision after decision that led me here, here to this home in the middle of the country for this season of time. Here where these parents are pouring and kiddos are loving and Jesus is being praised by all. Here where the flip of calendar actually heals and Thursday night worship redeems years stolen. Oh I am so thankful for this family, for this time, for this God who knew I needed a glimpse of the home that is coming.

So home, I think, home is the promise not yet fulfilled and the longing that keeps us finding. Home is coming, keep finding Him.