On being home

I’m home.

Now, just give me a second to process this, I am back from “the world” and now in Rochester, well North Chili (pronounced Chai-lie).  Back to sleeping in a bed and having continual access to transportation and a freezer.  Back to watching television or going to the movies, able to use my cell phone and text messaging.  I have internet access in my HOUSE!!  I am actually cold.  I am not sweating and I no longer smell like curry.

But how do I feel about it all?

I have returned to the home I left, changed.  Forever changed.  In ways the house has changed, the neighborhood has changed, heck the airport has even changed a little in the time I’ve been gone, my future has changed.

This is only our house, our home, for one more month.

This is only my town, my neighborhood, my haunts, for one more month.

We’re moving.

I woke up at 3:17 am yesterday morning, my first day back and I started sorting through clothes.  What am I going to keep, what fits, what even looks good, what can I sell at our garage sale?  My dad and mom both woke up at different times during the morning and looked in on me, wondering why the light was on, and why the heck, since I went to bed at 6:45 pm, exhausted, wasn’t still sleeping. 

“Brittany, you know that this can wait, get your rest!”

I know it can wait, it can all wait.  But I can’t wait.  I can’t wait to look at everything that at one time meant so much, but now doesn’t really matter.  To sort through clothes that were an expression, a goal, an ideal.  To establish a new expression, a new goal, a new ideal.

I want to look like Christ, I want to smell like Him, talk like Him, love like Him, listen like (and to) Him, walk like Him, walk with Him.

I want my life to reflect Him!

This morning I read through the journal my dad kept throughout the year for me.  I laughed, I cried, I wept, I praised God.  I was able to see how what I was doing, what I did, was what God did, what God was doing.  That, praise the Lord, throughout the past eleven months, God has changed not only me, but my family, my friends, those close enough to hear the stories of what God did to, with, in, for, through, despite, etc. P-Squad, July 2010 Squad…the people we met along the way….  It was amazing to read the things that family members wrote during American Thanksgiving and Christmas, that I was missed, but that they were proud of me.  That they were encouraged, challenged, blessed by the way God was working in my life.

Just know that none of that would have even been possible without their prayers, their support, their faith.  Without your prayers, your support, your faith.

Thank you.  Really, thank you!  Thank you for trusting God.  For being obedient.

I also thank you for your patience, I have a few more blogs to write about this transition home and other things, but thank you for being patient throughout the year for the sporadic blurps I’d send your way.

Numbers 6:24-26 — The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you, and give you peace.