homesick

I learned a new word today: hiraeth.  It's a Welsh word that describes a kind of homesickness; a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia and wistfulness.  Its more like a homesickness for a home you can never return to.  That perfectly describes what I've been feeing the past couple of weeks.  Our 'nomad' life of the past 18 months is wearing on me.  My frayed edges are showing.  It's not pretty.  Aside from the fact that we sold the home our children lived all their teen years in 20 months ago, we're also currently squatting in a friend's home while they winter in Florida.  (I don't even have the comfort of my own 'stuff'.)  Added to that, our children are all grown and building their own homes now.  So I'm homesick for a home I can never return to. That's hiraeth.

There's a constant yearning, a low-level anxiety in my gut.  Like when you're in line for a roller coaster ride that someone talked you into - but your'e not really excited about.  You just want to get on the ride and get it over with.  I'm feeling displaced.  But not just displaced.  It's like having one foot solidly on ground and the other foot dangling over a precipice: not yet settled in a new place.  So maybe I'm not just feeling displaced, I'm feeling unplaced.  Without a home: home-less.

My first-born, fix-it personality naturally wants to just find a place already! Pick one and settle. There might not be anything wrong with that plan.  But I keep resisting that urge to 'make a home' because I'm seeing in myself a scary propensity to make 'home' an idol.  I could devote countless hours to Zillow and HGTV.  Many more hours than I spend in search of the Word - and a deeper understanding of my God. And each time I start mentally whining about being 'homeless' I'm convicted again about the ridiculousness of that statement.  I'm living in a gorgeous home on a beautiful lake with more solitude and sunshine than I've had in years; while thousands of refugees flee their homes, leaving behind memories and precious belongings and in some cases, family.  Their pain doesn't make mine less true.  But it puts it in perspective.

Am I desiring home more than I desire God's presence?  Am I homesick for my children and family more than I'm homesick for intimacy with God?  These are the questions I'm asking myself today.  (Is my fantasizing about moving to Waco and having Chip and Joanna Gaines flip a dream house for me wrong?)  I'm not sure. I guess it depends on how much of my mental energy I expend in that fantasizing.  And how much I allow dissatisfaction to taint my heart.

I want to make my 'home' in the presence of God - and His presence in me.  I want home to be less a physical location, and more an inner connectedness with my Father.  I'm not there yet.  But I'm learning how to be content right where I actually am.  The undercurrent of anxious anticipation is still there.  But as I daily give that desire over to God, I have to believe He's building His desires within me.  You know what my heart wants God.  Help me want what You want more.  

inexplicable peace

My friend is burying her son today.  
That's wrong on so many levels.  No parent should have to bury their child.  It's not the way God intended.

I don't know how to comfort a heart that's breaking.  Peace that 'passes understanding' seems not to have a place in this kind of grief.  Like it shouldn't have a place.  Like maybe experiencing peace in the midst of tragedy is dishonoring in some way. 






But I don't think peace means your heart doesn't break. Maybe it just means your mind can stop racing; your teeth can unclench because you sense God's presence with you there. In the middle of the pain.


If we who love Him are really Jesus' hands and feet, then every embrace, every word, every tear, touch and look of compassion is God Himself: holding you.  Grieving with you. Comforting. That picture, that reality, makes it a little easier to breathe. 
Maybe that's what peace is.

God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.  He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. 
~2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Feeling Grace

I don't know how I should feel today.  I am surrounded by grieving, hurting people.  Cancer, disease, inexplicable death.  Even the sky is sad today.  We arrived home last night after 10 days driving over 2000 miles to sit in hospital rooms and waiting rooms with family who are suffering: an 18 year old nephew battling 2 types of cancer; a 42 year old brother recovering from open heart surgery; a mother who lives with no feeling in her fingers or toes and little hope of that getting better.

Today, we drive through patches of fog as we go to sit with our dear friends and just be.  There are no words.  No words to explain why their 25 year old son died suddenly.  No words to express our sorrow to his wife of less than a year.  No way to begin to answer their hearts cry, why God allowed it to happen.  I ache for them in ways I've not ached before.  And stop by to hug my own 24 year old son a little tighter than usual.

And yet, there's a real and uncommon peace.  A sense that this wrenching grief won't last forever. That someday we'll see the purpose in the pain.  Or maybe we won't, but it won't matter anymore. But that feeling seems wrong.  Seems not to honor the ones who are gone.  

So I don't know how I should feel today.

I'm simultaneously sick to my stomach but quiet in my mind; weeping over loss yet hopeful for the future.  Choosing to trust in the goodness of the Father when everything around me points to pain.  I have SO much to be thankful for.  And I feel unworthy.  But I'm wondering if this is exactly what grace feels like.  To be 'pressed on all sides but not crushed, hunted down but never abandoned by God.'  Is His grace best understood in tragedy?  Does He show His innate goodness not in cocooning us from the realities of our fallen life, but in His tangible presence with us in the mess? And in the promise of rescue one day soon?   That's where my hope lies on this dreary, grief-filled day. He is here.  And that is enough.

Taste and See

"Taste and see that the LORD is good." - Psalm 34:8  I've heard this verse all my life and always associate it with my need to remember that God is good.  I love the confidence that exudes from that verse.  Almost like a cosmic 'taunt':  'Go ahead. See for yourself.'

But why taste? Of all the senses, why that one?  Why not ,"Look here. You can see that God is good."  or "Listen:  you'll hear that God is good." I've been mulling that over the past couple days...

I wonder if the Psalmist had told us to "Look and see that God is good", would I doubt?  Would I be tempted to rub my eyes in disbelief?  Like he's a master salesman, tricking me into thinking that something mediocre (or even bad) is actually good? Especially when things around me clearly aren't good...would I still be convinced that God is good, just by looking? I'm not sure.  (There's a reason "I couldn't believe my eyes!" is a thing.)

Or how about Listen?  Listen - and hear that God is good.  I used to think the words to the Michael W Smith song were "Go West young man, don't even go East."  (There are entire websites dedicated to misheard song lyrics.  It's actually pretty funny.) But for obvious reasons, I don't think I would trust just on the basis of my hearing.

But taste; tasting is different.  I can't fool myself about something in my mouth.  The thousands of taste buds in there tell me if something is salty or sweet or bitter.  "Taste buds tell your brain whether or not to swallow what's already in your mouth."  So if I'm tasting something good, you'd better believe I'm going to swallow it.  Take it in completely.  And when I ingest something, it is absorbed into my body, and makes changes to the chemical balance in my system.

In that sense, taste is the perfect verb to experience the inherent good-ness of God.  'Come here. Sample. Swallow. Ingest.  Don't be deceived by what your eyes see, or confused by what your ears hear.  Taste.  Definitively know that God is good.'

Then trust in that good-ness.

What a Difference a Day Makes

My thoughts are all over the map today, so I don't know for sure what I think.  But I know what I feel; my heart feels heavy.  And sad.  And confused and a little scared.  And very disappointed.

On Thursday, American Christians were praising the people of Emmanuel AME Church in South Carolina for their sacrificial love: forgiving and showing mercy and extreme grace in the face of gross injustice.  There were posts and 'likes' and comments and promises of prayers.  Our church joined hundreds of other churches across the country and around the world in 'standing with our brothers and sisters and declaring they will not grieve alone'.   The Church (big C) looked good as Jesus' brand of selfless love was reflected to the watching world. "Hate is powerful but love is more powerful." Amen.

On Friday, American Christians are once again posting and 'liking' and commenting, but this time on the SC's decision to legalize same-sex marriage and I feel sad to the point of 'sick'. How could the Church be so united one day and so divided the next?  Are we really that fickle?  That short-sighted? 

I'm not even talking about the decision.  That's an entirely different issue.  I'm sad today about some Christians' very public response.  The underlying (and sometimes overt) message I hear in so many comments is "We're right, you're wrong, and we're going to hold on to that 'rightness' in the name of Jesus because we have to stand up for what we believe!"  I fear that's the message the world is hearing too.  And as I'm called to be like Jesus, who 'only did what I he saw the Father doing', I'm asking myself if that's the message he would be speaking.  I don't see Jesus defending himself and his 'rightness' (though he, of all people could have). He didn't stir up the disciples to defend him.  (In fact, he rebuked Peter for defending him in the garden).  I don't see Jesus hunting down the adulteress to say that he loves her, he just hates her sin.  When the issue was forced on him in John 8, he didn't respond with bible verses, or even well-thought arguments.  He gently reminded everyone that they too, sin.  They too are wrong.  And so am I.  In more ways that I want to admit.

But Jesus also didn't ignore her sin.  He just reminded her that she was made to live a better way.  "Neither do I condemn you; go and from now on sin no more".  I often wonder if she did.  Was her life forever different because Jesus loved her enough to not condemn her sin, but challenge her to change?

That's the posture I want to have.  I don't want to condemn others for sin.  I can't.  I sin too.  But I do want to challenge it, and have it challenged in me.  And by doing so, point to a better way by walking that way myself.  Hate is powerful but love is more powerful.

A Thousand Little Deaths

So I've been in kind of a funk the past couple of weeks.  Someone said something that really hurt.  It was unfair (though maybe not entirely untrue).  But the way they said it, and the time they said it was so wrong it lessened my respect for them. And it wasn't a little comment, it became a rant.  And others joined in.  And friends sat in silence.  Yeah. Painful. Hence the funk.

I've been holding my 'righteous indignation' like a comforting teddy bear.  It didn't actually make me feel any better; I just thought it did.  I had daydreams about what I would say to these people next time I see them.  (You know, the scenarios where you have the perfect come-back or the most generous forgiveness??)  I had to force myself to go places I thought they might be.  I'd rather be anywhere else. 

But after a couple of 'funky' weeks, I'm even irritating myself.  This has to stop.  

So yesterday, I decided to pick up a really good book I hadn't finished yet.  I found my bookmark and began to read...and experienced that sweet, Holy Spirit 'slap in the face'. The kind of 'ouch' that comes when you realize you've been wrong, but you didn't see it until this moment.  The one that shows you how your 'righteous indignation' has been anything but righteous.  The 'sweet slap' where you are convicted but not condemned.  That's when I know it's the Holy Spirit.  Only He can do that.  And He's really good at it.

I've been holding onto that perceived injustice like a badge of honor.  And I have to let it go. What they said was still unfair.  Their timing and tone was still wrong.  But the way I've let it color my feelings about the whole group has been wrong of me.  I'm learning I have to go back to my Father and ask Him to remind me what is true: about the situation, about those people, about me.  I have to remember that I have been crucified with Christ - and I no longer live, but He lives in me.  I've already died to worrying about what other people think of me.  But today I die to that again.  And knowing me, I'll have to die to it again tomorrow. I'll have to die a thousand little deaths until I can embrace the new life God has for me.

But more than anything, I want to say "Yes" to that life.  So I have to let this go.  I have to forgive.  I have to ask God what in their words rings true? Why did it hurt so much? What is He wanting to deal with in me? 

Shallow-Truster

If I'm being totally honest, I have to admit I'm a shallow-truster.  I wish I could trust with abandon.  But I'm more like the boy's father in Mark 9, "I believe; help my unbelief!"  I can trust in little things, but still tend to freak out over big things.  I hate this about myself, but I'm asking God to help me with it.

(which means He brings me multiple opportunities to 'practice' trust :/)

Last night was a rough one.  My husband was part of an incredibly painful, difficult conversation, and after he came home and 'debriefed' with me (which included rehashing the conversation - complete with varying levels of emotions, answering my million questions and finally praying together so we wouldn't let anger/discouragement take hold), we both had less than restful sleep.  So as I'm flipping through my journal (because that's what I do when I'm procrastinating instead of actually making a new entry), I found the page where I had written down the Prayer of St Teresa:

"Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. All things pass away:  God never changes." And I felt God saying, "I won't ever leave.  I know your world has been turned upside down.  But I am unchanging.  I'm still in control. And I won't let you go. Don't be upset. Don't be afraid. You can trust me."

I trust you God.  Help me trust you...

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