they unloaded their house and hitched up their 5th wheel and sold their home to a young family whose u-haul is parked right outside their front door tonight.
we've got ourselves some brand new neighbours.
some of my walls still stand bare - we moved into these four walls 372 days ago and there are spaces that still baffle me.
it will come...
maybe.
and maybe home is close to my heart tonight because i don't necessarily know what the plan is anymore.
i think of all the times when i've demanded my own way of God. fighting Him at every turn - thinking that four walls meant stability and putting down roots meant being comfortable and safe and when i glance back at the road behind me, i can see the claw marks in the ground - the places marked with a desperation for control.
and they were bloody.
and they are still raw.
but if the scars have taught me anything, they've taught me to trust in a kind and tender Saviour.
what happens when the road to home doesn't lead to comfort and safety and tidy and clean? what happens if the road to home leads you deeper and darker into what pushes against everything that make sense?
we live on a quiet street with quiet neighbours and crickets that sing in the flowerbeds below our bedroom window. until this past week, our 4 were the only children on this road and the occasional grandchild who comes to spend the weekend at a grandparents house...
but then he takes that job on the street formally known as "the hole". where drugs and gangs and violence and drive-bys are the norm.
the year before? there was an opportunity to go down there, before tony ever took the position he has now, for a harvest party in "that" part of town and i shook my head - there was no way. no way i was taking my children into an area that unsafe.
i don't know what happened...when that shift occurred. when i no longer felt scared. we go down almost everyday and most days down there are just like our days here in the middle.
there's a sign at one of the main intersections in town that splits *that side* from *this side* and each time i drive by it i feel torn...
it's a sign that is supposed to make you think, but what it does is make me sad -
which road are you going on? it asks:
the road to heaven - which apparently follows the road leading back towards mansions and comfort and the safe part of town,
or -
and i always look at those words as i reach for the blinker that signals which direction i'm turning:
or are you on the road to hell?
well then,
i guess i'm on the road that leads to hell everyday.
and instead of wanting to escape back here at the end of a long day, i find myself longing to be down there. down in the hellish nightmare of a world i still don't completely understand. and both of us? we agree - it's where we are feeling led, but the timing? it seems so slow but our hearts are burning and if we are saying to Him that our lives are His...that where He leads is where we will go, then we wait with open hands until He clears the way.
and so my walls remain bare.
but the restlessness - it rubs my soul raw and i look around at closets that need to be sorted and baby clothes that need to be switched out...baseboards that should be dusted and light switches that should be wiped down and i get overwhelmed with the everyday...
and after a long week of doing i begin to feel overwhelmed with the list that shouts out the needing to be done.
saturdays have turned into a chaotic heart scramble and the day off we have as a family finds me twisted up in a knot taut and ready to snap.
before we left for the green of vacation last month i began to pray about our saturdays - about the heart messes that find their way into a schedule already heavy with the housework that needs to get done and as we drove further away and closer to rest it's what i kept sensing...
sundays are a day for sabbath - a ceasing of work and allowing our bodies to rest;
but could saturdays become a day for sanctuary? a space hollowed out to become hallowed - as i clean the nooks and crannies around me, could my spirit find a place to breathe in His Peace? could the day before the day of rest be redeemed and made holy too?
i'm tired of the striving.
to be honest, my soul is weary...His call to find solace and rest in Him? i wonder if i can really settle down long enough to see if it's possible - but i'm willing to try.
this saturday will find me bent over in a simple, most basic step...
i'll be lighting a candle - one in each room. a reminder that He is the True Light - the One Who shines brightly in the darkness that surrounds..
.the One Who is really and always my True Home...
