Home.
I just got back from spending a month visiting my friends and family in the states - a trip made a few days longer by a hurricane that tore up parts of the east coast where I have been and places where was going to fly to, but those flights got rearranged.
And now I am home in a land which looks nothing like where I grew up, but feels very, very much like home - the delightful place where I know most of the streets and a good number of the people who live on them and where my neighbors all know my name even if I don't remember all of their names. Where I have my place to buy bread and my place to buy apples and my place to spend a few quiet moments on Sunday afternoons. Home.
What has stuck out to me the most as I've left one home to go back to another is how very loved I am and how very, very good God is. In the second half of Mark chapter 10 God promises that he will give new homes and many brothers and sisters and families to people who have left theirs - many, many - and I can say that is very, very true.
There were many years as I was first living in Cambodia where I was very homesick very often. I knew I wanted to be in Cambdia. I knew at some point that it would not even hurt so bad not seeing people from home for so long at a time. And though what I felt then was real and how much I love the home I've come from hasn't changed - I was right.
I have more brothers and sisters than I can keep count of right now. I have countless aunts and mothers who ask me if I am eating right and tell me what I should do about it. I have uncles who like to tell me jokes. I have older brothers who ask the challenging questions of me saying they just want to see God's best for me.
And I have homes opened up to me all over the place where I can crash for a night or a week or a month.
And I have been very well fed - not just my stomach, but also my heart that has been challenged and encouraged by so many who have shared stories and spoken kind words to me by people in all of my different homes.
I am very, very thankful for the family God has placed me in - as large and crazy and different as we all are.
And now I am home in a land which looks nothing like where I grew up, but feels very, very much like home - the delightful place where I know most of the streets and a good number of the people who live on them and where my neighbors all know my name even if I don't remember all of their names. Where I have my place to buy bread and my place to buy apples and my place to spend a few quiet moments on Sunday afternoons. Home.
What has stuck out to me the most as I've left one home to go back to another is how very loved I am and how very, very good God is. In the second half of Mark chapter 10 God promises that he will give new homes and many brothers and sisters and families to people who have left theirs - many, many - and I can say that is very, very true.
There were many years as I was first living in Cambodia where I was very homesick very often. I knew I wanted to be in Cambdia. I knew at some point that it would not even hurt so bad not seeing people from home for so long at a time. And though what I felt then was real and how much I love the home I've come from hasn't changed - I was right.
I have more brothers and sisters than I can keep count of right now. I have countless aunts and mothers who ask me if I am eating right and tell me what I should do about it. I have uncles who like to tell me jokes. I have older brothers who ask the challenging questions of me saying they just want to see God's best for me.
And I have homes opened up to me all over the place where I can crash for a night or a week or a month.
And I have been very well fed - not just my stomach, but also my heart that has been challenged and encouraged by so many who have shared stories and spoken kind words to me by people in all of my different homes.
I am very, very thankful for the family God has placed me in - as large and crazy and different as we all are.
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