My family is in the middle of a big life transition. You may have read about it in the last post. We’re gonna leave in about a week, and my heart feels a little quivery. But, I have to remind myself that my heart has often felt a little quivery, even in my everyday normal life. It’s never taken much to shake me up. News headlines. A difficult relationship. My children’s tantrums. Storm clouds. A certain time of the month, when hormones are out of whack. I’ve always had to recenter myself back on Jesus, so many times, through out the day. This has just become a normal and vital spiritual practice.
So, yeah. We’re going on an adventure. We’ll be living in our RV during the school year, traveling the U.S., ministering to churches. A couple weeks ago, we moved into it, so we could get adjusted. (And so I could get my house cleaned. Some friends of ours will be staying in our home while we’re away and I just couldn’t seem to get our place picked up, with us all in it, making messes.)
I’ve been going back and forth from the house to the trailer, trying to clean and organize and remember what all we need. Every time, I drive up to my driveway, though, I’ve got this little tinge of an ache.
I’m already missing home.
I like the trailer. I want you to know that. It’s spacious and comfortable. But, today we had to pack everything up so Brent could practice pulling it behind the semi. And it felt so disconcerting. I stored the tea kettle and the canisters in the oven. And put my houseplants in the bath-tub. And took the light bulbs out of the lamps and wrapped them up safely in my underwear drawer.
The whole time, I kept saying, “This is what you do. This is what you have to do when you go on an adventure. You have to pack things up. If you don’t go through the packing up part, then you don’t get to go see all the things that you wouldn’t normally get to see.”
I took a break from all the packing and went and stood out in this big, open sunshine-y field. “God, You’re my Home. You’re my heart’s true home.” I just repeated it, like a mantra, to try to assure my insecure self. I’ll have to do a lot of that, in the days ahead. This talking to my soul, until the truth seeps in and gently overtakes, like the warmth of the sun on my skin.
On the drive home this afternoon, back to my house-house, (that’s what we’re calling our real house now, so as not to get confused) I felt that quivery anxious, I’m going through a transition and I don’t know where I’m supposed to land feeling.
So, when I got inside, I curled up on my bed and read Psalm 90.
Lord, you have been my home since the beginning. Before the mountains were born, and before you created the earth and the world, you are God. You have always been, and you will always be. (from Psalm 90:1)
“Where’s your one safe place in this world, Maggie?” God keeps whispering it into me. And sometimes I trembly speak it back to Him, “Your Heart, God. Your Heart is my home. No matter what, no one can shake us out of Your heart. Not even Houston floods.”
Out in the field by our trailer, there’s this chicory that keeps finding a way to bloom, even though it’s been repeatedly mowed down. Wildflowers are like that. You give them half a chance, and they’ll thrive just about anywhere. A crack in the asphalt. Or a tangled-up thicket. That’s just their nature–to bloom wherever they find themselves.
I plan to abide in Christ, out on that open road. Now, I know it’s not gonna be easy. But so long as I’m tucked into His heart–my truest, realest Home–I know I can bloom wherever I find myself. My roots going down in Him, where I always belong.
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. (John 15:4)
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