There’s No Place Like HOME

This was our travel schedule for the month of August (give or take a few days):

July 30: Move from the home we stayed in for most of July to our base in Charlottesville, VA.

Aug 2: Move to a house in Crozet (about 40 minutes outside of C’ville)

Aug 7: Go to Boones Mill ((my hometown) for a reunion with some high school friends, stay with my family for a week. (2-3 hours drive)

Aug 14: Go to Massanutten for a short vacation with Jason’s family. (2-3 hours drive)

Aug 22: Return to our C’ville base (1 hour drive)

Aug 27: Go to Boones Mill for Amanda’s birthday and one last visit

Aug 30: (Sunday) We speak at a church in Farmville, then continue on to Charlottesville. (3 hours + 1 hour drive)

Aug 31: Fly to Vermont

There is only one word to describe how I feel. Weary.

From the packing. From the driving. From the kids crying in the car. From the unpacking. From not having anywhere to land. From the utter lack of schedule.

I think I need a pair of ruby slippers.

The problem is, it’s almost like I don’t know where Home is anymore.

We live in Taiwan. That is where our life is and I enjoy many, many things about living there. But I still feel like a foreigner, I don’t know if that feeling ever goes away. And when I am in Taiwan I feel all these little tiny stressors pressing down on me from all directions…When I see a cockroach scuttle across the kitchen counter…When I cook on my stove with only two burners…When I take the bus, instead of a car, to the park…When I travel by taxi with my children and NO carseats…When I can’t buy yogurt without sugar in it…Nothing is that big of a deal, but it adds up and causes life to chafe a bit. Even after four years, Taiwan just doesn’t really feel like Home.

In my heart Home is in Virginia, where I spent all of my life before moving overseas. But I don’t really have a home in Virginia. When I am there I am just a visitor.

In my head I know that my true Home is in Heaven. That I am merely a pilgrim on this earth and that I am not to love this earth because it is passing away. Honestly though, I am just not yet at a place where my heart can grasp that truth and be comforted by it. My heart feels sad because it wants a real home, one here and now that I can sit down in and let out a sigh.

I also know that God is trying to teach me about my true Home. But right now I’m still in the Learning, and it is no fun.

No fun at all.

But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.  (2 Peter 3:13)

By faith Abraham, when
called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance,
obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By
faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a
foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were
heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:8-10)

There’s no place like home….there’s no place like home….there’s no place like home…..