going home

It’s not really our home, you know.

I said the words jokingly—actually, only half jokingly—to a guest in our house the other day.

The visitor was visibly surprised. We’ve lived in the house for a decade and a half, filling the walls with artwork we’ve chosen to fit our taste, and the bookcases with volumes to feed our souls.

The walls still seem to echo with the voices of our grandchildren and college students around the table. If I listen carefully, I can almost hear the Lovely Lady’s mother’s musical laugh, her idiosyncrasies and stories far outlasting her years on this earth.

The Doxology still rings in the air, sung by voices young and old scattered around the little dining room. And, before the strains of that beautiful old hymn of praise die down, one may be able to make out the joyful carols sung so many times over the years inside these thick brick walls.

Many whom we love have crossed the threshold of this wonderful old house while we’ve resided here, a better home than I ever imagined it would be. The welcome here was always warm, the food delicious, the fellowship all one could ask for.

That was then.

Home is the place where even the host feels welcome, the retreat where the world is left behind at the door, even if only for a little while.

And God said to Paul and his Lovely Lady, leave behind this beautiful and welcoming home, along with the music store, your vocation and place of ministry for the last thirty years, and go to a place I will show you. But, not yet.

But, not yet.

Am I comparing my circumstances to Abraham’s? Really? I tell you, there have been times over the last few months when I would have told you he had it easy compared to me.

All Abraham had to do was to obey and walk. God showed him the rest. Under the great oak tree at Shechem, God waved an arm around and declared that everything he saw was his. Home.

I hope there is little need for me to reassure the reader I have no illusions about my importance in the grand scheme. I’m well aware of the part Father Abraham had yet to play in the history of mankind.

I understand the great faith it took for Abram to leave his family and country and travel, not knowing where he would end up. I only make the comparison because this Hero of faith had merely to take one step after another until the Lord told him to stop.

A pilgrim no more, he would be home. Home.

But, I’m sure many can identify with this unsettled feeling I have deep down when I look around me in this old house. It’s not my home anymore. Oh, my name (and the Lovely Lady’s) is on the title, but my home is somewhere else.

Or, it would be if I could leave here. There are still a number of things that have to happen before I walk out the door for the last time.

So, I keep walking back in every evening. I keep sleeping in (what will be) someone else’s bedroom. I work in an office that will never truly be mine again.

I’ve got one foot firmly planted in the present, and the other poised to take the next step—to a different place entirely.

It should be time to close one chapter and move to the next. Only, I keep reading the last paragraph again and again.

I don’t write these words to get sympathy. Not at all. I do wonder though, if anyone else can identify with how I’m feeling.

Anyone?

This unsettled feeling—this impatience and restlessness—I wonder, did our Savior ever feel it?

Earth was never His home. He left His home to live here temporarily, before returning to His rightful home. (Philippians 2:6-8)

He wasn’t welcome, didn’t get settled in. He came to His people and they didn’t accept Him. (John 1:11)

He didn’t even have a place he wanted to call His own. The birds and animals had homes, but the Son of Man didn’t even have a place to lay His head. (Matthew 8:20)

He didn’t settle in. He never got comfortable. He was Creator of all that is and there was no place here for Him to call home.

The task for which He came still lay ahead of Him. And, after that—home.

Really. Home.

And, after that—home. Really. Home. Share on X

I’m realizing something, these days as I miss the home that was and look forward to the home that will be. I’m realizing I’ll never really be settled-in there either. It may be the place I reside for the rest of my life—or not. Regardless, it won’t really be home, either.

Just as now, when I gaze across the bridge to the next place, in my heart, I’ll someday be looking across the river to that place, my last and final destination and feel the need to go home.

I may even wonder, as I do now, why I have to wait—why I have to keep one foot in the present and have the other ready to take that step into eternity.

For right now, I’d settle for simply taking the next step.

Just one will do.

For a start.

Leaving home—to go home.

And then it happens all at once and unexpectedly. That is how things happen, I suppose. You pack your bags and find yourself walking yourself home.
(Shannon L Alder ~ American author)

Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.
(Hebrews 11:10 ~ NLT ~ Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.)

Photo: Jeannean Ryman Used with permission. — Photo: Jeannean Ryman. Used with permission.

I knew you were no good.

Nearly two weeks later, the words still hang in the frigid air of the Chinese restaurant. The cold gale is still blowing through that door held open by the helpful stranger.

And the words still hang there. They are colder than the air blowing in from outside.

I knew you were no good.

It’s warmer there now, I know. But my mind can’t move on. She said the words to me. To me.

Her baby.

They had warned me that angry words might come. I was prepared to be kicked out of her house, along with the others. I was even prepared for the conversational words she would speak which would have nothing to do with any conversation going on in the vicinity. The disease from which she suffers has robbed her (and us) of the reality we have shared for all of my life. I know that.

When she said the words to me, I didn’t react—in fact, didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t really her saying that to me; it was this different person who has no memory of the past left, speaking to a man she didn’t recognize.

I know that.

Still.

Back home now, lying in my bed at night, the words have echoed in my head. My mother, who never in all of my life uttered a cruel word to me, told me to my face that I was no good.

The facts of her illness, I know—intellectually. My problem is the event happened to me—personally. My brain struggles to keep the two straight, failing miserably.

I’ll sort it out, eventually.

Still. The words hang, frozen by the frigid wintry blast. And, sitting here in my cozy corner, I shiver.

She doesn’t know me anymore. She doesn’t recall she had any children, can’t remember who my father is. Even though she can’t stand for him to be out of her sight, she couldn’t tell you who the man is.

I wonder what it would be like to be surrounded by strangers in your own home. I even have this strange thought that starts to take root, asking: what if she no longer knows who God is?

Ah, but you see, now the worries and the what ifs, and the if onlys start to tumble one by one, when I reach that question.

The reality is that whether or not she knows Him anymore is not nearly as important as the answer that stands above every question in my long list.

He still knows her.

He still calls to her.

He still communicates with her.

Don’t believe me?

That very morning, in a little church fellowship hall, I sat beside her, a stranger sharing his hymnal with her. She took hold of the edge of the book and tugged it over in front of her, soon commandeering well more than her share of the page. And, without a thought in the world about who was listening, she sang. As loudly as she could, she sang.

Me too.

Song after song, we shared that book—I, finding the right pages for her, and she, pulling more and more of the volume her way, until I held nearly none of it in my own hand.

That red-headed lady who raised me taught me to sing in church.

I spoke of it with that other red-headed person in my life, the Lovely Lady, just the other day. I don’t know any other way to sing.

Why would you worry about who hears you? You’re not singing for them! All my life, growing up, I heard it and saw it modeled.

Sing it out!

My Mama and I sang for the One who still knows her. And me. A couple of ladies in the church mentioned my singing later.

I’m still not sorry I sang so loud.

You know, as I sit and write, I glance mentally over at those horrid words, frozen in time. Funny thing. They’re not frozen anymore. They’re just mixed in with the rest of our conversation and communication from that day.

Come to think of it, they weren’t all that untrue. That lady spent a lifetime understanding that none of us is born good, and she tried to do everything she could to help me past that. She taught and sang, begged and demanded, all the while trying to help form and shape a man who would be good.

I’m not there yet. But, I got some world class coaching along the way.

Oh, and an introduction to the One who will make me good.

I’ll keep moving.

And singing at the top of my lungs for Him.

…the sheep recognize His voice and come to Him. He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out.
(John 10:3 ~ NLT)

My mama loves me, she loves me.
She gets down on her knees and hugs me.
She loves me like a rock
She rocks me like the Rock of Ages, and she loves me.
(from Loves Me Like a Rock ~ Paul Simon ~ American singer/songwriter)

Photo courtesy of Jeannean Ryman. Used with permission. Jeannean has many of her wonderful images available for sale and for use in projects. Contact us if you’d like to communicate with her.

He's Taken Leave

Random wanderings with Paul Phillips

Not Home Anymore

Frozen Words