Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Home



"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in" is a famous quote by my favorite poet, Robert Frost and I came across it this past week as I read a book entitled "The Prodigal God" by Tim Keller. The book is amazing. But I really wanted to write about home because I have been thinking about it a lot these days. My mother carefully embroidered a saying that graced the wall of our home and it said, "Home is where the heart is". There is certainly an ache in the heart to be in that place where one can be totally free to express dreams and joys and sorrows without fear of ridicule or criticism. I have felt it at times, and even if it was fleeting, it felt wonderful. One place stands out to me in a myriad a memories. We were having dinner, my dearest friend and her husband and their twin boys. I was back in the States on furlough and the two toeheads were preteen. We got to laughing about something so much that the laughter rose and rose until it just spilled out all over the place. And I felt I had come home.



It's that longing for home, that aching of the heart that I have been thinking about, not so much for me, as for my children. I worry about them sometimes. We are twelve all told. Do they feel secure enough? Do they miss their biological families? Do they truly sense they are home? They are my children and yet they are not. That is the tension we have all learned to live with on some level. They have come to live with me under a rented roof and each one has a specific story for why they are here. We are a makeshift family, born of necessity and longing rather than biological birth. I love them more than they will ever know. Last night during our family devotions (long neglected which I am not proud to report) one of my children said, "Mom, why don't you wake us up at 5:00am so we can read the Bible together like we used to?" And then the whole lot of them chimed in with, " Yeah Mom (only it was in Spanish) let's do that again!" I was kind of in shock! Who has children who beg them to wake them up at 5:00am for prayer and Bible reading? Suddenly it occured to me that God is answering my prayers for them. HE is their true Home and they have a thirst for His Presence that can only come from Him. How blessed am I to be a part of this rag taggle band of thirsty children.

How blessed am I to be a part of this, His Home.







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