Home.

Home is where the heart is.
Home Sweet Home.
"There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home." Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz
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All very familiar sayings when talk turns to home.

If you are anything like me, you've lived in more than one place in your life. (I’ve lived a peripatetic life.)

If you are like my husband, you have stayed in the same area, but moved into different houses, a few times.

Moving is hard. In most research results it turns up in the top five of most stressful situations a person can go through. Up there with 'Death of a Loved One' and 'Divorce.'

International moving completely depletes. As does moving when in the midst of other struggles. These can wipe us out for years.

Moving while going through a job change, while dealing with death of a loved one, or even while going through a divorce are all monster emotional upheavals.

Moving is a hard time. And when we are moving from one HOME and entering into the beginning of another new HOME, nothing feels secure.

We must struggle the unknown: find new doctors, new schools, new churches. Once again facing the uncomfortable place of being on the outside.

In 2006, I packed what few belongings I had left and entered the adventure God was calling me into. I climbed onto a plane and landed in a country I’d never been before, listening to a language I’d never learned before.

I found the most delightful apartment in a tiny resort town in Germany and lived the life of a struggling ex-pat in a foreign world.

I moved back to the USA at the end of November, 2014. I had no job, no car, no voice. But what was most disconcerting was no home.

I was blessed. My dear friends opened an extra bedroom to me, as they were in the process of moving themselves. I lived there for almost a year.

This passage, Psalm 84:1-4became real to me in that time of upheaval.

Granted, I had moved every few years in my younger days. But in my 30s, I had settled into a more stable environment. ( a teacher as opposed to daughter/wife of engineer, and wife/military)

I lived in Germany for almost ten years. I did not plan on leaving. I was called onto the mission field. For years I told my adult children in the USA life on the mission field wasn’t my idea; I had to do what I was being called to do.

Until He led me back to USA, I was staying. It was hard for all of us to understand, and I honestly didn’t expect to return until my retirement years. And yet, God turned me upside down with certain events and led me back.

Being led, isn’t something you debate. I’ve learned the hard way. I never want to be somewhere God doesn’t want me to be. If God hasn’t gone before to prepare a place, I’d rather wait. But when He does close and open doors to direct me in a certain direction, I best get about going where He’s pointing.

However, home isn’t home until we know this truth: one day in His presence is more important than any place.

When I returned to re-enculturate, it took years before I felt at home. And yet my spirit was being confirmed moment by moment, I was with Him, in His presence, in His courts. And I could praise and rejoice, I knew He had me.

My mom is turning 90 in a few months. She’s had a hard time in a facility over the last months due to a compound fracture of her tib and fib.

She says she’s ready to go to her eternal home. But God must not be done with her yet. She lives and gets feistier! Oh, how I love her.

My my mom loves being in His courts. Some day we will enjoy them together. Because one day in his court is worth a thousand days elsewhere.

Do you long to live in peace and joy worshiping through eternity, being fully and wholly complete.
I wait patiently for that day.

Right now, I must be satisfied with shouting from the airwaves, God is my home.

He’s our Home!
Mine and Biff’s.
Is He yours?
I hope I never have to move again. But if I do, I know he remains my home. And with that I am secure. He is my abiding place. I run to Him and am sheltered in place.
Is He your abiding place?
let us know.
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Robyn Cox
RR&BC, LLC