This house is not my home!

So, most who know me know that I have been on a journey of late ... a journey to find where I live. 

Huh? Let me explain.

My husband and I put our house on the market in early January of this year.  It sold in early March. That was great!  But ... we didn't have another house waiting on us. So, we moved all of our belongings into storage at my aunt's house and we moved ourselves into my mom's house!  Nothing like "going back home" at age 34!  But what a blessing it was to have a roof over our heads and love abounding.  

Two months after moving in with my mom we were able to purchase my husband's great-grandmother's house. Again - what a blessing!  The house was very well built in 1931 ... but ... it needed some repairs and, eh hem, updates.  So, the process of remodeling began.  Dare I leave out the blessing of having a talented husband who works in this line of construction business.  He can do just about anything. I mean, how many women out there say to their husbands, "Honey I trust you to make it look good and do it right.  You can pick out the colors in the kitchen." I hope you were sitting down for that one. If you are picking any part of you off the floor now, I apologize for not giving any prior warning.  

The timeline continues.

Four months after remodeling begins, we are ready to move out of my mom's house and into our house. It's mostly finished ... mostly. There are a few things in each room that need to be completed, but it's not really anything that keeps us from living.  

But I keep feeling out of place.  Actually, I've felt sort of out of place for 6 months now.  Most of my "stuff" has been stored away. Many of my clothes and shoes, my books, my dishes and cooking supplies, my .... well, most everything.  At my mom's house our space was limited and with 3 kids in the house along with 3 adults we made do with the personal belongings we had to have. Now that I've moved into the house I will call home, I'm trying to find a place for everything ... but I can't find everything I thought I had.  Where did those finger nail clippers go?  And where is my hair dryer?  (Thanks mom for letting me borrow your travel one!) And didn't I have a can opener?  Or did we get rid of that before we moved?  And what is this? I don't remember that at all!  Where am I going to put those things???  Why can't I find my underwear?!?  Honestly, people, I have stuff all over the place! Still in storage, still at my mom's house, somewhere in a box, in a barn under some tarps, I'm not even kidding it's spread out everywhere!

Moving is stressful, y'all.

But God is teaching me, like always.  As I was reflecting today on how this house does not yet feel like "home" simply because all the "comforts" are not in place yet, God brought a thought to my mind -- this house is not your home; furthermore, this world is not your home.

You see, I've realized over the last 6 months that I can actually live with a lot less that I ever thought I could.  Now don't get me wrong.  I enjoy all the things that make this life more comfortable and more pleasant.  And I do not think it is wrong to have these things.  Many of them can be wonderful blessings from above.  However, sometimes my focus gets a little out of whack.  I start to think that these things are more important than they really are.  Or that they are more necessary than they really are.  Or, the trap I've fallen into this week, that the stuff is what will make me happy and comfortable and finally feel at home where I am.   

This house is where I live, where I raise my family and where I rest when my body is tired.  And I am grateful to have this house. And yes all my "stuff" in the house makes the day to day living easier.  But God reminded me this week that my home is with Him.  Home is, after all, where the heart is, right?  So if my heart is with Him, then with Him is when I will truly be at home.  And all this stuff?  Well ... maybe I should find a way to ship it to my REAL home, in a proverbial sense. Store up some treasures in heaven, you know?  I've lived without some "stuff" for 6 months and I'm doing just fine ... perhaps there is a struggling single mom down the road who needs it more than I do. Perhaps, rather than thinking I need to go out and buy something new to replace what was damaged in moving I could simply live with less and find a use for that money in Christ's kingdom.  There are so many ways to send my treasures on ahead of me, where moth and rust will not destroy. 

The last 6 months have been quite the roller coaster ride - fast with lots of ups and downs, twists and turns, ins and outs.  But God has remained quietly constant in my life, choosing to remind me of where I call home in the midst of trying to find and set up a "house" here on earth.  One day, all this here on earth will pass away, but my home in heaven is eternal.  I pray that God continues to remind and teach me how to live here, while setting up my real home with Him.

After all ... You are sovereign

Hello, long lost readers. Oh, wait - I am the long lost writer. Where have I been? Oh, you know the answer to that ... it's an answer we all know how to give - "I've been busy."

The odd thing, though, is that I have thought about this blog and have had things to share. Many times I wanted to sit down to write, but couldn't figure out which words to use.  Truthfully, the post I wanted to write but never began was to be titled "A New Normal." I had the title, but not the words. Or, should I say I had the words inside me but couldn't come to put them on the virtual paper. Why was that? Because my last written post was about my dad. And about 5 weeks after writing that post, my dad entered into the presence of his Savior. Then, the new normal began.

But I didn't know how to get the words out.  Life goes on, it's not like normal before my dad passed. But it's normal ... a new normal. I don't really like the new normal.  The reason is simple - I miss my dad, and that is part of the new normal.  Yet, at the same time I love living this life with which God has blessed me. But, how can I enjoy things without my dad here? It's an odd paradox. Happiness in the midst of sorrow. Pleasure mingled with pain. Joy punctuated with sadness. So, I avoided writing most days because I didn't know how to put those feelings into words.  It seems now, though, that I just did.

What is different about today, I wonder? I can't pin point it for sure, although I have some idea. All I know is I've been meditating for many months on God's sovereignty. Do I "like" His sovereign plan?  No, not always. But does my like or dislike change Him or His plan?  No, never.  And who is God? He is I AM.  The only one in this universe who can be named and described with no boundary of time or space. So rightfully, sovereignty belongs to Him.  

There is a song by Meredith Andrews titled "Not for a Moment (After All)".  I've heard this song on the radio for a while now. However, a couple of months ago I heard it afresh while working in the house my husband and I have been remodeling (okay, really he's been remodeling it and I've had the chance to help every now and then). As the song played on the radio the lyrics struck me differently.  I guess it's because I had been studying and meditating on God's sovereignty for quite some time.  The chorus goes like this:  "After all, You are constant. After all, You are only good.  After all, You are sovereign.  Not for a moment will You forsake me."  I sang out loud with the radio, meaning those words in a way I never had understood before. The past year's experiences and the lessons God had been teaching me poured out of me like water being squeezed from soaked sponge. I sang those words fervently and fully to my Constant, only Good, Sovereign God who never has and never will forsake me, even when His ways hurt for a time here on this earth. I planned to sing them in my church as well the next opportunity I had to do so.

Fast forward just a bit to this present week.  Shocking, saddening news met me at my classroom door on Wednesday as one of my principals delivered news to me that our Children's Pastor at Faith Church had suffered an apparent massive heart attack. My heart broke for his wife and three children. He was so young.  He had so much more life to live and work to do ... at least, in our plans he did. But in God's plan ... His constant, only good, sovereign plan, Randy Gray's work was complete here.

Not for a moment will You forsake me.  After all, You are sovereign.

The words from the song I had planned to sing in just another couple of weeks rang out over and over in my head. The Gray family will have a new normal. They will feel the paradox of emotions that losing a loved one brings, especially when we are believers who know our loved one is a believer now home in the arms of Jesus.  They will need each other and the rest of us as they wrestle with God's sovereign plan.  They will not like it, but God will not change.  He is constant and He is only good.  And He will not forsake them.  He did not forsake me and will never do so.  Randy Gray, like my father, now understands that in full.  Here on earth we continue to walk day by day, trusting in His plan until our day comes, when we, too, will see face to face our Savior and Lord.  Do you know that peace? Do not wait another day to make certain. Remember that your plan is most likely not God's plan, but His way is perfect.  After all, He is sovereign.