To Bring Us Home

It has been quiet around here for awhile. 

Over the last two months Jason and I have been making ourselves a little more at home in our new house.  In truth, Jason has done much of the work.  I have helped to rearrange a little, while being otherwise consumed with the fullness of real life--Christmas letters, baking, meeting neighbors, spending time with family and the normal daily things one does like making dinner and cleaning the house.  All this has been in the midst of pregnancy exhaustion.  It has been good and God has been good in the midst of all of it.

This time of learning to be at home in our new home makes me think of one of the ponderings for me this December as we celebrated Christmas.  Christ came to bring us home.

When I was at the Allume conference in October, one of my favorite sessions was one I didn’t expect to go to.  It was led by Laura Booz of 10 Million Miles and PennsValleyFamily.com.  I found most of the session wasn’t applicable to what I saw myself doing on the blog, but for five minutes God used her to speak straight to my heart about His heart.

Laura talked about the three parables in Luke 15—the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the man with two sons. 

Of the shepherd she noted how he left the ninety-nine to go after the one.  She described how he said “I am going to go and be with you.  I am going to bring you home.”

Of the woman who stops to look for the coin, she described the woman’s tenacity.  “I’m going to be with you—search every nook and cranny until I find you.  I’m going to bring you back home.”

Of the Father she describes how he’s looking and he sees his lost son returning home and he runs to him.  He says, “I’m going to be with you, to welcome you.  I’m going to bring you home.” Then when he throws the party for this young son he notices the absence of his eldest son.  Then, too, he goes out to him.  He goes to be with him.  He goes to bring him home.

This is the heart of God.

So Christ comes. 

He comes to fulfill God’s promises.   

He comes to be Emmanuel—“God with us.”  

He comes to do what we could not do for ourselves.  

He comes to live a life obedient to the Father as His treasured child. 

He comes to live among us differently.

He comes to offer himself up for our sins, trusting in God’s goodness.  And God raises Him up from death to life.  He raises him up as an example of how we should live—lovingly and sacrificially as His treasured children.

In Christ, God comes to be with us.  He comes to bring us home.

It has been a month of seeking to receive this amazing gift.  It has been a month of resting in God’s love. It has been a month of seeking to share this gift with others.  It has been a month of living at home.

Now that we are mostly settled at home, I am hoping to be writing in this space again each week.  I am still praying through exactly what that looks like.  I plan to figure that out along the way.

I do know that I look forward to sharing this becoming journey of living at home in the Father's love with you in this New Year.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we receive the gift of the God who came to bring us home.  May we find that it leads us to a life long journey of becoming more and more like Him and living under the banner of His love.

Jessica :)

P.S.  I want to share a video with you of what it might be like to come home and live in the Father's love.  This is a video that Crossroads did in their series called A Journey Home.  It is an imagining of what the morning after the lost son returns home to his father is like.  Receive it as a gift.

Digging Through the Grime

Jason and I are in the middle of moving into our new home.  As we do this we are also participating in “A Journey Home” with our family at Crossroads.  I am sharing a little bit about how the physical and the spiritual are matching up in life right now as we do both.  I hope we will all grow in the midst of this journey home.  You can read the whole of this journey series here.

***

One thing Jason and I noticed as we began to prepare for the move to our new home was how dirty it was.  It is not unusual to clean before you move into a new home. I have done that several times.  However, this was certainly the least clean place we have planned to live.  I am not sure how the family who lived here before us made themselves step into the grime and mold and mildew that would have touched their body in the shower.  I don’t think I could do it.

Yet, I wonder.  Is it easier to just live in our grime?

This week, in our journey home, we were invited to explore some things as it related to our fathers and how we grew up.  We were asked to think about three or four descriptions of our fathers or the parent who raised us.  Then we were to think about how these characteristics affected us.  From here, we followed a trail from the way we responded in the midst of our parental relationship to how it might influence our relationship with authority figures and our view of God. 

It was really helpful to consider this.

As I sat in my seat during the Saturday night service writing in my guide, I was surprised by what I learned and remembered about myself.

It was as I was thinking about my dad leaving my mom and our family when I was a junior in high school that I remembered how I felt.  I remembered the night he told us he was leaving and how I was disappointed in his failure to do the right thing.  I considered the bitterness that I experienced during college and how it was prayer that took the sting away to leave me just sad for what had been lost. 

As I pushed through these memories I uncovered one more, the way it felt when he was gone. 

I didn’t feel safe anymore. 

I was unaware that I had felt safe until the safety was gone.  I imagine it was a lack of physical safety as my mom would go to work at the hospital for her night shift, despite my siblings being in the home.  I think it was probably a lack of emotional safety too.  If family wasn’t safe, what was?

As I considered how this affects my relationship with authority figures and God it seems to me that it left me with trust issues, which I already struggled with due to some bad experiences with friends in the past.  It left me wanting to take control in some situations and feeling helpless in others.  I think this pretty well describes some aspects of my relationship with God.  I find it difficult to surrender and let go of control.

I do not mean to suggest that all of my trust issues stem from this one event, important as it was in my life.  We all have trust issues. 

They stem from the enemy of God planting seeds of doubt in each of our lives, just as he did with Adam and Eve: “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” 

For us he might be asking any number of questions: "Are you sure you can trust God with your cares?", "Are you sure God isn't going to be angry when you tell him about the mistake you made?", "Are you sure that God will love you even though you failed?" or "Are you sure that God will not leave you stranded?"

As a result of the fall we are all spiritual orphans, looking for home.

In our small group this week, we were challenged to dig through that which has affected the way we relate to God to discover what is true about him.

I am considering how “God isn’t leaving.”

I am reading Psalm 9:10 over and over again trying to hide its truth in my heart.

“Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.”

As I do this, I am digging through the layers of grime in my own life coming from experiences and beliefs that I hold about God.  I am scrubbing through that which is false to claim what is true.

It is kind of like the hours I spent scrubbing the shower.  I rubbed through greens and browns and pinks to find the white solid surface underneath.  It took time to get through the grime, but a comfortable home, I want to live in, lay on the other side. 

This is true of seeking the truth about God.  His true character is worth discovering.  In Him, I find my real home.  I do not have to be an orphan.  I can claim my identity as adopted child.

“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.  Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out “Abba, Father.”  So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.”  Galatians 4:4-7

I’m seeking truth and running for home.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we consider how we relate to God and some of the ways we might have been affected by our experiences and past beliefs.  As we surrender these to the truth that God reveals to us in His word, may we find we come running home to him embracing sonship.

Jessica :)

 

P.S.  Thank you to my mother-in-law, Linda Holmes, for letting me use the photo she snapped while I was scrubbing down the tub in the bathroom :)

Journeying Towards Wholeness

Jason and I are in the middle of moving into our new home.  As we do this we are also participating in “A Journey Home” with our family at Crossroads.  I am sharing a little bit about how the physical and the spiritual are matching up in life right now as we do both.  I hope we will all grow in the midst of this journey home. 

***

This week, the large Bradford pear tree that was in front of our new home was taken down by a contractor.  The tall maple or oak in the backyard (I forget which, since I can’t yet look out the window to see it yet) was pruned.  These things needed to be done because they were causing damage to the roof—rubbing shingles away and allowing for water to seep in where it should not.

Like the tree rubbing on the roof, when we consider the way we operate and think about the world, sometimes we are surprised by the way we are affected by them.  This is what we explored during the small group experience of A Journey Home this week.

Jason and I gathered together with a group of couples whom we had never met before at Crossroads.  Our group was full of couples from different stages of life.  There was an engaged couple, several couples with young families, one couple with grandkids and then Jason and I, who are in-between all these.

As I think of it, I smile remembering the good fun of introducing ourselves with English accents and comparing the lengths of our thumbs.  I marvel at the way each person opened up to share deeply personal things about the stuff in life that keep us from feeling at home.  I have only known these people for a week and I already feel close to them.  I look forward to spending more time together with them.

I think about the descriptions list we were asked to consider.  I circled a lot.

 

We were instructed to pick one to explore.  I chose “I often feel jealous.”  My group asked me the question “Why” again and again to help me dig down to a place I’ve visited before, but need to be reminded of again and again.  At the bottom of my jealousy is the fear that God’s goodness is exclusive.  If he is good to someone else, he couldn’t possibly be good to me. 

Of course, this is not true.  But it is a lie I slip into believing if I am not careful.  I tell my group this.

I am sometimes jealous of the fruit in others lives because I do not bear the same fruit in mine.  The most freeing thing is when I stop to realize that these wonderful people are being who God created them to be and reaping the fruit of living surrendered and fully His. 

I can celebrate with others without the need to be jealous because I can live the same way—resting surrendered in God’s truth and love.  I will bear fruit too.  My fruit will be different than theirs, because I am a different person whose personality and gifts will combine in different ways.  This is okay.  It is also as it should be.

I repeat the truth to myself.   

“The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.”  Psalm 145:9

God’s goodness to others does not mean he will not be good to me.

I begin to take some thoughts captive and set the truth firmly planted in my heart.

It’s like the Bradford pear tree, really.  The contractors cut it down, but the stump was still there.  It was no longer causing damage, but a remnant was still noticeable from time to time.  The contractors came back today and ground it down to the ground.  They got rid of what was there so that something else can grow there later.

I wonder, as I dig out the roots of this falsehood, what beautiful truth-loving thing will begin to grow?

The spot in our yard will be filled with a native Ohio tree. 

Maybe the one in my heart will be full of a deep joyous love.

***

Grace and peace be our in abundance as we seek to replace lies we have bought into with the truth that God tells us is real.  As we do may we live free—freely surrendered in His presence, resting in His love.  May we reap the fruit of living as the person God has created us to be.

Jessica :)

Longing for Home

On Sunday, we opened the front door of our new home for the first time.  We had been there on a number of occasions as we were in the process of deciding to purchase the house.  Yet, as we eased the key into the lock and turned the latch, this time it was as home owners rather than guests.

As we walked through the increasingly familiar floor plan, the dog hair and dust and grime glared at us from where it sat.  It was the first time we had seen our home without any furniture in it.  In it, we saw the possibilities of what could be.  It was also a moment of realizing the work that would need to be done to make it home. 

Home is waiting on the other side of grime.  Home is waiting.  It is ready to be made.  It is ready to be settled into.  We are longing for home.  We are on the journey.

It is rather appropriate. 

As we begin the yearly “journey” with our family at Crossroads.  We are all taking “A Journey Home.”

When we stepped into our house, it was after exploring the idea of baggage.  We are all spiritual orphans who believe certain things about ourselves, others and God.  Many of these traits leave us hiding.  We hide behind anger or try to justify or explain away mistakes we make.  We see the world with eyes of scarcity and negativity rather than a lens of God’s goodness.  We measure our contentment based on how successful we are, often comparing ourselves to others.  We operate out of fear.  And we often feel lonely, because we have a hard time sharing who we really are with others, afraid of how they will feel about us.

Our pastor talked about these common places of the human experience.  He said that common struggles are indicators of a spiritual reality.  We long for belonging.  We want a place where we can be who we really are.  We are looking for home.

“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”  John 1:12-13 TNIV

There is a home that we have been made for, it belongs to God.  There is a family in which we will all find we belong.  We have a Daddy that is waiting for us.  We may need to pause to consider what it is we hold in our hands.  What baggage are we carrying?  We may find that we need to let go of some of it, discarding it, so that we might embrace who we have been created to be.

So, as Jason and I journey home, I will be sharing with you some of the things we’re learning along the way as the physical and the spiritual meet up for us in the midst of this journey.  We hope that you will find yourself making the journey with us toward home.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we bravely consider the things we deeply believe about ourselves.  As we consider this, may we encounter what it is that God believes about us, what He calls us toward.  May we trust in His judgment as truer than our own.  May we take steps toward calling Him Daddy.  May we be courageous enough to journey home.

Jessica :)

P.S.  The photo was obtained off one of the realtor sites awhile back.  It was in the public domain.