A few days ago I enjoyed the opportunity to go home.
Not to the house in Georgia where I live with my husband and two boys but back home to my mother’s house where I grew up and lived for nearly twenty years.
Everyone should have a “safe” place to turn.
Not necessarily a physical structure, or even a destination but a corner of the world where one can retreat and just…be.
We are often called upon to be many thing in our lifetimes. A spouse. A parent. A child.
Employer. Employee.
Supervisor, facilitator, worker bee.
We are often labeled by others and even label ourselves to such a degree it is quite easily to forget who we were created to be.
I can’t always run home to mom when the urge hits me like a hammer, but my Father is always near.
Unlike people, God understands every hurt and pain. He is ever-present waiting for us to ask Him, like a small child, for direction. Why this and not that? God protects. God is patient. I don’t even have to drive for hours to find His understanding.
There is a quote “you can’t go home again.”
I beg to differ.
Yet, home will inevitably change.
What once loomed large is now quite small. What was once so small now towers over you.
Roles change.
Perspective changes.
The things you took for granted can become oh, so precious.
My daddy planted Magnolias in the yard when I was about two years old. They were very small plants when he placed them in the ground. I doubt he ever imagined how tall they would become. They are several stories tall.
He passed away years ago but when I look upon the trees, I can smile.
Likewise, I planted ivy the year I married and moved out of my parents’ house and it is now everywhere!
I know my mother shakes her head each morning as she walks by it to get the paper. I’ve left a bit of myself (maybe too much!) there in the shadows of trees my father planted.
Just like my physical father, God “planted” things for me and even in me to grow.
Faith. Love. Hope.
I can smile at the growth from the many “trees” God planted for me now. I didn’t always appreciate the “trials” necessary for them to mature but in hindsight I am so glad He did!
Home is any place where I can just be me.
The “me” God created me to be!
Not a person scrambling to meet the expectations of others. Or, a person failing to meet my own goals and aspirations in what I perceive to be timely manner.
Home is where I can sit and smile and hear God talk to me. Leisurely. Familiarly.
I am grateful I don’t have to travel to God. He is always near.
What about you? Are you home yet?
The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked,
But He blesses the home of the just. Proverbs 3:33 NKJV
B Is for Blessed! 