I tend to find what I'm looking for in the unlikeliest places.
Lately I've been studying 1 Peter, which is an excellent teaching on what it really means to live a holy life. Yesterday, I intended to go from the last verse of chapter 2 through part of chapter 3. But this one verse hit me so hard that I knew it was where I needed to dwell for a little while.
"For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." (1 Peter 2:25)My whole life has been a roller coaster. With seven moves and ten schools in my almost 18 years, I gathered a lot of heartache from becoming attached to places. Despite the fact that I am beginning to see God's wisdom in putting me where I was, being uprooted over and over again planted a tendency in me to hold on to things that I couldn't keep. Houses. Situations. People. I found myself discovering that the art of losing is harder to master than Elizabeth Bishop suggested.
"Home is where the heart is," the saying goes, but I kept putting my heart in things that failed me. I think it hit me hardest when I sat in a hotel room, unsure of when we would have a house to live in, and realized that one of my dearest friends had left me. I had two choices, and I chose wrong. I chose to sink deeper into the despair and vow never to think someone or something could be my home again. I resisted trying to invest in people and in places because I'd probably end up losing them anyway.
As you can guess, when you have nothing to hold on to, life can get pretty dark. It stayed that way for a while, until I realized that my home is Heaven.
Things picked up and lightened up, and I had the best year or so of my life thus far.
A few weeks ago, everything got shaken up again.
And, by the grace of God alone, this time I chose Him.
This verse is the culmination of the change that's been happening in me lately. Yes, Heaven is my home, but it's my home because He is my home. And where is He now? "Christ in me, the hope of glory."
Yes, my greatest reward is at the end but I don't have to wait for Him because He's here. The Psalms tell us that God is near to the brokenhearted. That truth went from my head to my heart and while it isn't easy, I can breathe because He is near to me.
No matter my house or my situation or my companions, I am home. I am home because He is my home and He is here.
Our hearts may stray but He will not. He will bring us home to Him every single moment if we will only turn our eyes towards our Shepherd.
On Tumblr the other day I posted this:
"You know sometimes I wanna be all silly and geeky and Doctor-Who-Obsessed and sometimes I wanna be all cool and collected and hipster but then sometimes I just wanna surround myself with flowers and wisdom and say the word “lovely” and be the very air of grace like I stepped right out of Pride and Prejudice. Being a person is hard."(Yeah, very teenager-y of me, I know.)
Yesterday, as I was journaling, I found the answer.
"We stray, but the Lord always brings us home. Christ is our home. Not people, not houses, but Christ. He is the only place that we are perfectly known, loved, and accepted.
When my home is in Him, I am safe. I am loved. I am lovely. The only way to move on, the only way to become who I need to be, is to fall more and more in love with Him. That's how to become lovely. That's how to become the air of grace.
It's You. It was always You."
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