“Home” has come to be a very passionate subject in my life. When my parents divorced my freshman year of high school, there was a stretch of time that I would try to avoid being at home as much as I could. Everything about my house reminded me of my broken family. But when the Christmas season rolled around, I craved a sense of familiarity and tradition to make my crumbling concept of home feel a little more in tact. Christmas was the time of year that I came to love the most after my family split up; it reminded us that in the midst of our brokenness, it was Jesus who bonded us together.
This past Christmas has been the first I have spent away from my hometown, away from the house I grew up in. This past summer my mom got remarried (whoop whoop!) and moved to Redding, CA. After this, I moved in with a family from my church. I went from living alone with my mom to living with a couple with 4 kids under the age of 6; one of them born during my stay! To say that it has been a struggle to transition would be on point. I have dealt with feeling like an intruder, feeling like I had to confine myself to my room all the time, and never feeling totally comfortable. But I’m in the process of accepting that these people really do love me as a part of their family and want me to treat this place like my home.
So as I drove 3 hours out of town for the holidays this year, I’ve realized the little freedom I’ve felt in just relaxing into this still-new season correlates to my spiritual life perfectly. Throughout all the tension in my childhood home and the times I’ve struggled to just feel like I belong somewhere, my comfort has proven to be in Jesus. I know it sounds cliché and over-heard, but when you experience a part of God that becomes personal, it changes the weight it holds over your life. And this has been heavy on me for several years. I’ve cried out to God on my living room floor, in my car, in my office during some dark seasons of life and He has flooded my heart with comfort every time. I have tried to walk through such affliction on my own to the point of a breakdown, only to be washed with peace beyond my understanding after talking with my Father. Looking back on all these times spent with my Father- I was truly home.
I’m so blessed to be learning this truth so early in my life, and especially before I start traveling the world! Am I nervous for all the change, foreign experiences, and living among 7+ people 24/7? AAAAABSOLUTELY. Nervous probably isn’t a strong enough word, but I don’t want to speak fear over my life 😉 But I know my Father and He knows me in a way that connects me to constant peace even when everything around me is falling apart. When I hit my wall, He will be there. When I cry and want to go home, He will comfort me. When I feel pushed beyond my limits, He will strengthen me. And in all of these times, I know I will feel at home because He is my Familiarity, my Constant One.
“…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” -Eph. 3:17-19
