What God Taught Me Tonight about Home-Building
I dropped Mom off at the airport today and almost immediately felt bereft. It was wonderful having her here for a few days and remembering what it’s like to have someone around who really knows me. After only three months in East Texas, I was beginning to feel the full effect of homesickness. If home is where your mom is, she most definitely was not here.
As I drove home, I realized that for me home isn’t just where my mom is, it’s where I feel known. Moving always seems to disrupt that feeling. I felt very much at home in Virginia the last few years I lived there; I had a wonderful church family, a large social crew, and several really close friends. Now, however, I’m in a new place with new people, and my little introverted self is once again struggling to open up and deeply connect with the people around me – which leaves me feeling very unknown.
And today, I really just want to go home.
Seeking comfort
But, going home isn’t exactly an option for a university Resident Director. So, I go through the motions, sit through meetings, do my best to listen, empathize, and offer encouragement to my students, then finally retreat to my little, on-campus apartment. Feeling empty and desperately in need of a recharge, I shut my door – something I rarely do during the day – head back to my spare room and my big, fluffy chair, huddle up under the blanket Mom made for my birthday last year, and pull my Bible onto my lap.
I know coming to Texas was God’s plan for me. The doors opened, the light shone down, and I knew I was supposed to come here. But knowing all that doesn’t really help a whole lot when I’m homesick. I flip open my Bible, searching for comfort in the familiar words of Jeremiah 29:11. However, I quickly realize my version of The Message doesn’t have the verses marked, thereby making the location of a specific verse a bit difficult. So, I decide to read the entire passage. I’ve forgotten how it started anyway.
Make yourselves at home?? Are you kidding me, God? I don’t want to be at HOME here! I want to GO home!
Just like the Israelites
It was at this point that I realized the Hebrew people probably wanted to go home, too. I’m sure they were grumbling against the prophet, just like they always seemed to do when they got into a tight spot. They no doubt wanted to go home to Jerusalem, but God was telling them to stay put, invest in their new land, learn to love it, and consider it home.
No one knew them there. They were the exiles, the slaves. They didn’t even speak the same language. They were ridiculed and persecuted for their ethnicity, their customs, their clothes, and their faith in the one true God. No one in this new land cared if they lived or died. Some probably wished they’d all die or just go back to where they came from.
Settle in. It’s going to be a long wait.
And yet, God tells them to settle in; it’s going to be seventy long years, and He doesn’t want them to just waste away, forgetting who they are and Who’s brought about this exile. He wants them to make their home in Babylon, to multiply there and build up strength and numbers, to pray for the Babylonians and those ruling over them that they might see the GOD-of-Angel-Armies for who He really is.
IF they’ll do all of those things, He makes them a promise:
“I’ll turn things around for you. I’ll bring you back from all the countries into which I drove you… bring you home to the place from which I sent you off into exile. You can count on it.”
Ah-ha! If I can learn to view this new, unfamiliar place as home, God will take me home. Yay!
A new perspective on “home”
It’s at this point that I realize that home isn’t necessarily a physical place. God doesn’t have to take me back to wherever my family is or back to Virginia for me to feel at home. (Not that I wouldn’t LOVE it if He did!) I believe God wants to restore me to that sense of home, to that place where I feel seen, known, and appreciated for who I am, where I am loved unconditionally, where I am deeply connected with those around me and care as much for their well-being as for my own.
Homebuilding takes TIME
Though I’ve nearly blocked it from my mind, Virginia wasn’t always home, either. It wasn’t until well into that first year, and probably even into the second year, that I really started to connect and feel completely comfortable with the my co-workers, the ladies in my church group, and the other members of our local young adult group. It took a lot of time and effort to develop those relationships. That sense of home wasn’t something I built over night.
It took my parents nearly 9 months to build our house in Illinois. It was a long process, but one I know they feel was completely worth it. Building relationships can be a long process, too. It takes time to lay a foundation of trust. It takes time to set boundary walls, put in windows to the soul, and hang doors of openness. It takes time to tile a roof of protectiveness and safety. It takes time to decorate with comfort and inside jokes. But in the end, I know the end result of all that time and hard work will be worth it.
Homebuilding is WORK
And I know that’s what God is calling me to do here in Texas – begin building a home. The hard part is that it’s not going to feel like home right away. It’s going to be uncomfortable sleeping in an unfinished house, exposed to the elements of fear and possible rejection. My muscles are going to ache at the end of the day from the strenuous and emotionally-draining labor, and there will be days when I’m going to want to quit. The progress will seem slow, and I’ll get tired of setting studs and nailing on shingles only to have them be blown away in a sudden storm of betrayal or abandonment. Even when I finish the house and move in, it still probably won’t feel like home for a while yet.
Homebuilding is WORTH it!
But it will. God willing, it will. God has proven himself faithful throughout my life, providing family, friends, and a sense of home wherever I’ve been thus far – Kentucky, Illinois, Michigan, Chile, or Virginia. My God is faithful. He has taken care of me every time before, and I know He’ll do it again. Right now, however, it’s my turn to start building my home here and stop wishing and whining to go back to the home I used to have. It’s my turn to be faithful, to build a home in Texas, and to wait and see how God wants to bless it.
As a former University Resident Director, Career Counselor, Certified Personality Trainer, and high school Spanish teacher, Laura has quite the “scattered” background — with one underlying theme: education! She writes to teach and inspire women on topics related to faith, family, and lifework. She is also a resume writer, specializing in resumes for moms, career changers, and new graduates.
