There's no place like home
"There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home"; I found myself thinking Dorothy's mantra. We'd been on a very long journey. My dear, sweet, husband and I had spend three weeks in Reno, a last ditch effort at treatment for cancer that was invading his body. My young son had joined us for the last week, as I was thinking my mantra, I heard him say "home, sweet, x-box!" Home was just around the bend and you could hear the anticipation in his voice. We were all relieved to be almost home.
There really is no place like home. But what is home? As we were pondering a move away from the place we've called home for fourteen years the tears started to flow. As a way of maneuvering through the emotion, my young son suggested we look up the word "home" in the dictionary. At first glance it didn't seem to help at all. It's a simple word, meaning "the place where one lives". My son concluded encouragingly that our home would be wherever we are. I was so relieved and proud of his bravery.
At second glance, the word becomes more complicated. Did you know that the word can be used as a noun, an adjective, an adverb, or a verb? My favorite, "homing", struck me between the eyes. I've lost my homing beacon. My partner in life, love and family is gone from this earth. My homing husband gone, I feel lost, confused and disoriented. I look to the left and to the right and don't know which way to turn, I stand frozen in space pondering the next play. Move out of the place we've called home? How can I do this? How can I leave the memories, the space that we've filled and lived so much life in. The space where we poured our sweat and tears into family and life and experienced true joy. How can I leave this space and make a new home? Emotionally, this move feels impossible. But the harsh reality is, my homing beacon is not here. Staying in this home will not bring him back.
Brian was an extraordinary man and the love he gave me is beyond what I ever thought possible. He was Jesus Christ to me, but he wasn't Jesus. He loved extraordinarily but not perfectly. God gave Brian to me for a time, in part, to point me toward Him. God uses marriage throughout the Bible to give us a picture of our relationship with Him. He calls us his Bride! He is our husband, my husband! I am not husbandless. I am not a widow. I have Jesus Christ himself! In the way that Brian was my homing beacon for wandering through life for a time, Jesus Christ has always been my homing beacon. My heart, my soul, my very essence is anchored in eternity, my true home. We truly are foreigners wandering in a land that is not our true home. I found a place that I called home for fourteen years, and in that home there was happiness, pain, suffering, life, and extraordinary joy in the midst of it all. I do not want to leave this home, this space where I am so deeply connected to my earthly homing beacon.
BUT it is a calling, to be sure, to close the book, the second book of a three part trilogy of my story. Book One: Susanne was born and grew up. Book Two: Susanne met Brian and together they grew up some more. I'd call it something like "Babies having babies, the story of how three children grew up their parents." Book Three??? I am struggling, I am wrestling with opening the cover of this book. Somehow I must close the last book. But how? I pretty much always read the end of the book before I get to the end. In this case I do already know where the story ends, it's eternity with my sweet Jesus, my Abba Father, and all the ones that have joined him. Life restored, as it was meant to be, no pain, no suffering, no tears. Knowing how the story goes surely must give me strength for the present. To live with my soul anchored in eternity as Hebrews 6:19 says "This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil."
Dear friend, as I write these things, I am standing in uncertainty, wrestling with how to close Book Two. I just don't want to. But I need to. Would you pray for me to have the courage of my young son, to leave this space we called home for a little while and claim another, to grab a hold of wherever the rest of the story leads?
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
There really is no place like home. But what is home? As we were pondering a move away from the place we've called home for fourteen years the tears started to flow. As a way of maneuvering through the emotion, my young son suggested we look up the word "home" in the dictionary. At first glance it didn't seem to help at all. It's a simple word, meaning "the place where one lives". My son concluded encouragingly that our home would be wherever we are. I was so relieved and proud of his bravery.
At second glance, the word becomes more complicated. Did you know that the word can be used as a noun, an adjective, an adverb, or a verb? My favorite, "homing", struck me between the eyes. I've lost my homing beacon. My partner in life, love and family is gone from this earth. My homing husband gone, I feel lost, confused and disoriented. I look to the left and to the right and don't know which way to turn, I stand frozen in space pondering the next play. Move out of the place we've called home? How can I do this? How can I leave the memories, the space that we've filled and lived so much life in. The space where we poured our sweat and tears into family and life and experienced true joy. How can I leave this space and make a new home? Emotionally, this move feels impossible. But the harsh reality is, my homing beacon is not here. Staying in this home will not bring him back.
Brian was an extraordinary man and the love he gave me is beyond what I ever thought possible. He was Jesus Christ to me, but he wasn't Jesus. He loved extraordinarily but not perfectly. God gave Brian to me for a time, in part, to point me toward Him. God uses marriage throughout the Bible to give us a picture of our relationship with Him. He calls us his Bride! He is our husband, my husband! I am not husbandless. I am not a widow. I have Jesus Christ himself! In the way that Brian was my homing beacon for wandering through life for a time, Jesus Christ has always been my homing beacon. My heart, my soul, my very essence is anchored in eternity, my true home. We truly are foreigners wandering in a land that is not our true home. I found a place that I called home for fourteen years, and in that home there was happiness, pain, suffering, life, and extraordinary joy in the midst of it all. I do not want to leave this home, this space where I am so deeply connected to my earthly homing beacon.
BUT it is a calling, to be sure, to close the book, the second book of a three part trilogy of my story. Book One: Susanne was born and grew up. Book Two: Susanne met Brian and together they grew up some more. I'd call it something like "Babies having babies, the story of how three children grew up their parents." Book Three??? I am struggling, I am wrestling with opening the cover of this book. Somehow I must close the last book. But how? I pretty much always read the end of the book before I get to the end. In this case I do already know where the story ends, it's eternity with my sweet Jesus, my Abba Father, and all the ones that have joined him. Life restored, as it was meant to be, no pain, no suffering, no tears. Knowing how the story goes surely must give me strength for the present. To live with my soul anchored in eternity as Hebrews 6:19 says "This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil."
Dear friend, as I write these things, I am standing in uncertainty, wrestling with how to close Book Two. I just don't want to. But I need to. Would you pray for me to have the courage of my young son, to leave this space we called home for a little while and claim another, to grab a hold of wherever the rest of the story leads?
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
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