Conversations on Home

a friend recently wrote asking my thoughts on "home," sort of. 

she asked, "so what do you do when you want to totally resist the idea of your 'hometown' as your new home?" 

like me, she has been, to use honest feeling words rather than entirely literal ones, displaced from somewhere she loved and exiled to her hometown.
i know, it sounds dramatic. but that's the thing about feelings, they tend to be a bit dramatic. 
and that's how it felt. 
it felt like God never said, "be here now," but he definitely never did anything to get me anywhere else, and never said any sort of, "you're free to go where you please."
and so here we are: "home."
my lovely friend also mentioned feelings of non-passion in a ministry that is completely worthwhile. 
(yes, i know that feeling.)

so what do you do when "home" doesn't feel like home anymore?
here are the thoughts i shared with her, my lovely friend in waiting:

• when i came back to salem, i came refusing to set down roots, refusing to commit to it as "home". but the only thing i was hearing from God was Psalm 37: dwell in the land. so, begrudgingly, and because someone else had done the work for me, i moved into the house i still live in with two girls...three weeks after coming back to the states. i was as ticked as my mom ("you've been gone forEVER and now you're moving out?!"), but i figured i had to live not-out-of-a-suitcase-at-my-parents' in order to "dwell in the land", and also that i could "dwell in the land" without really being involved in the land.
  then my church started a discipleship class deal called the timothy project, and it sounded good for people but totally unnecessary for me, but i felt like i was supposed to do it. and i fought it SO HARD. and i didn't even have the money for it, i had to take one of the scholarships to do it. my biggest fight, in my head and heart, was "i don't want to have to get to know people! i don't want friends! i don't NEED friends! i have friends in australia, and i'm not even going to stay here long enough to need friends."
  my whole heart held back. but felt pressed to join the dang thing anyway. and in the end it was really more about having a heart that would say yes to God.

  still, salem wasn't home anymore, australia was.

  honestly though, thinking back, my confirmations to stay in australia were words of security in God. they were invitations to be with him. and all commitments of heart, body and finances in australia were commitments to God, to the place we were together.
  the thing about a missional life, which we are now inextricably bound to, is that "home" is wherever you are. home is at the foot of his altar.
  God is everywhere, but you in God is sort of nowhere...you in God can happen or not happen in any city on any continent.

  my heart had lost that truth somewhere along the way in australia. i was no longer at home at the foot of his altar, i demanded that his altar come to where i was and be in what my heart was in. instead of a heart hidden in God working out in ministry, i think i had God hidden in a ministry which had my whole heart.

  we started out somewhere being uncertain of life in oz, and then we felt God's heart, for us, and for those kids, and the city, and the country. and then we were certain of life in oz. and then we left. and we can't go back. maybe just not yet, maybe not ever...hopefully just not yet.

  but to be here now, in a place where you can see from an intelligent perspective, and even heart perspective, that these people are so worth your investment, so in need of guidance and love and knowledge of all of the things that you have known of God. but you don't feel him like that right now. and you don't feel his heart for them like you know you can. you know that your whole soul can hurt for them with the heart of God. you know that it's possible to understand why Christ would die for them, because you know it's possible to feel like you might do the same.
  and if it's so worthy of your heart, and if you aren't allowed to leave, then why the heck don't you FEEL it?!
  it's like my boss said to me in my first interview: isn't this perfect for you? shouldn't you be happy?
  should be. should be. isn't. i'm not.

  i think it's a grace though. like a blinding of the heart. because he doesn't just want your feelings, maybe. he wants you. you. heart and soul. your everything. and if we can't become absorbed in what we're doing, we're left standing there...a little more available. drawn out into the desert, alone.

  i think he numbs our feelings sometimes because he wants to do something more, something deeper. he wants to get down to the roots which you might otherwise shoo him away from because your heart, and therefore mind and energy, is so consumed in this outward work.

  you are zealous for the Lord, zealous for the things on his heart, and to see his kingdom come on earth. but he is jealous for you, jealous for your heart, and jealous for his kingdom to come inside of you.
  he seems to quiet, or mute, everything else around sometimes, not allowing our hearts to be alive with passion like they once were for ministry, for young people. it's like he says, "do the work, but you can't be given to it. i need you right now."
  it reminds me of the allergy medicine commercials, where everything is blurred out until they take the pill.
  by his grace, you are impacting lives, you are doing a good work. it's just not fulfilling you like you know a vocation can.

  i don't think the key is in making your hometown feel like home to you, i think it's probably in making your soul feel at home in God again.

  oregon still doesn't feel "yaaay home!" to me, and my whole self isn't invested in what i'm doing like it was in australia; sometimes only my body is really all there, haha. and truly i felt terrible about that for a long time. but i can still pray, and i can still do the work, because i can still know objectively what God's heart is for these things, even when i don't feel it. it was only by his grace that i ever felt it before, so he must be able to give it to me here if he wants to.

  the thing is, God is passionate about you. and learning to embrace that, to let it in, is really one of the hardest, most important things. if you don't understand his love for you, and know how to love yourself well (or even just accept yourself and where you are), your loving your neighbour as yourself is gonna be pretty stinky. it's like he's asking you to put down the hose and be watered, maybe. or stop shouting the good news to everyone so you can hear him singing over you, maybe.

  home is where the heart is, and the heart will only ever really find its home in God.

  those are my lengthy thoughts on a feeling i know quite well. i also know that it has taken nearly two years of being back in my "hometown" for my heart to begin to understand again how to be at home in God. i don't know how to make that moving-in go faster, other than perhaps to stop fighting it, stop trying to move forward, stop trying to be better and do better, and surrender. but even that is hard.

  love you, praying for you, thank you so much for writing, i've been meaning to sit down and write to see how you are.
  love love

  
  

  

  
  

  
  

  recommended reading:

  Psalm 37, 84, 46

  Zephaniah 3:17