Allow me to fill in the gaps of weeks I have missed with this- the explanation of a gap I wish to fill.
I write this to cover all of these weeks because honestly, thoughts on home have been preoccupying my mind many of these 70 weeks- and frequently around the weeks I listed above- if not the entire time. Really, isn't that the question I'm asking with these weeks of prayer when I ask God where he wants me to go next? What I really mean in my selfish heart is, "where is home, God? Where can I go next that can be an earthly home to me and can it be the place that I can really call home, at least in this lifetime?"
I find more and more I have been asking this question: when do we really get to go home?
Alexi Murdoch says first we must go walking on our own. Well, I've done that. He then says, "maybe then we already are home."
Hmm, I suppose in some ways, wherever I am is home to me so in a way he's right. But I want more.
A friend of mine says if we're ever truly satisfied with our earthly home we will never be satisfied with our eternal home. I agree, I'd just like to be more satisfied with my earthly home than I am. I do want a place on earth to call home- a place that just feels right. I feel like I'm always searching for it, always have been, and always will be. Perhaps that feeling is the searching I feel for my eternal home. But there must be some place here where I can be for a while- a place that feels like it's where I'm supposed to be for a while. A place where, after a few years I don't feel the pull, the call to move on again. A place where I feel called to stay a while, establish a community, have ministry I am involved with, and an educational program I am involved with where I can actually make a difference for students.
Besides that, home is not just a place- home is a group of people- a family. Here is one of my biggest gaps- a thing I have always longed for and yet I only am realizing this now. All my life I have longed for community and attempted to create it everywhere I went. I joined clubs and groups in school and tried to create "families" and camaraderie within them. In college I made a particular organization my family, out here, my co-workers and students are my family and I am known as the one who is always planning bonding events, trying to make us more of a community. I find, while I generally find/create close communities, others involved in them treat them as secondary. Their families come first or perhaps a special group of friends. Since I feel that I never really had a family- only my mom- and always wanted a bigger one- I think I try to create one for myself everywhere I go.
One Christmas eve my mother and I drove around by ourselves looking at Christmas lights. We drove by best friend's house and saw her whole huge Italian family laughing and gathered around the tree. We felt like little frozen children or puppies or something sad in some Christmas movie peeking in a window longingly because it felt alone on Christmas. I've always wanted more of a family and I see now all the manifestations of that desire. Now I realize that something I want in the next phase of my life is a family and honestly, my desire for it scares me. I don't want to seek a relationship simply because I want a family out of someone- I don't want to be that girl. I want to meet someone who makes me want to get married and have a family. Just something to pray about, I suppose.
So the question becomes, what is home? At least on earth? A place? A group of people? A group of people in a place? Another one of my friends and I talk extensively about finding home- and how we have it while still keeping the wings we desire, the freedom to travel, the adventure. I find, while I want those things, what I want more is community and I'd give them up and stay in one place to get it. In the end- I think community is a key part of home (and our eternal home, as well, in a way) and thus, to me at least, it's a group of people. In a way then, I've had many homes, everywhere I've roamed. That sounds much more satisfying- we can't disregard every meaningful community and group of people we have in our life simply because we are looking for some place to call home. Everywhere is home. I just want an everywhere that can be home for a long time-longer than anywhere else, so all the other "homes" I've known pale in comparison. I want a long time community- a family. A place that feels right wouldn't hurt either.
And still, I realize, even as I write this- that while it may satisfy this specific desire- even if I find something I would call a prominent earth home- no matter where I go, no matter what job I find, no matter who I could find to marry or what children I could have, no matter who I could meet or befriend- none of this will ever truly satisfy the place in my heart reserved for Home and, until all these things that I imagine and desire pass away, I won't really get to go there.
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