We began a new journey last week. We packed up all our belongings in Wisconsin, putting some in storage, some in Iowa and took the rest with us. Technically will be homeless until mid-August. Currently our "home" is a motel in Medora, North Dakota as we are helping staff the Campus Crusade for Christ summer project here for the next 6 weeks. After that we will live in Fort Collins, Colorado temporarily as Josh works on a team getting ready for our National Campus Crusade staff conference there. Then we will finally land in Orlando, Florida where for 10 months we shall call that location "home."As I was trying to prep our kids about this transition, one phrase that I kept trying to enforce was that home for them would be wherever Mommy and Daddy were. That way, whether we were in a motel, in a dorm room or whatever the case may be, they knew that what was most important was that they were with Mommy and Daddy and that in us they can find security.
What I didn't realize is that the same is true for me as a child of God. My home is not really here on this earth, this is a place that I am just passing through on my way to my eternal home with Christ. And yet in me is a longing for home, that sense of security and a place where I can truly rest. Wherever I am, as long as I remember that my Heavenly Father is with me, I can experience that security and I can find rest, for in Him is where my "home" truly is.
John 14:1-4 - "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms...and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself..."
2 Corinthians 5:1 - "For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Hebrews 13:14 - "For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come."
Wonderful message, Jen! Your children will be even more enriched and grow into such amazing people because of this experience and the spirit of service you and your husband embrace.
ReplyDeleteThere is a great song by Carrie Underwood called "Temporary Home" that also promotes the message that our physical residence is really only temporary. The journey is what matters... finding your way to what you are destined to become is what really takes you "home."
Best of luck in your future endeavors:)I can't wait to read about them!
So true Jen....thanks for reminding me of that today and will be thinking and praying for you guys these days!
ReplyDeletethis speaks to where my family is at, too. not as literally, i guess, as your geographic journey, but the same concept. my husband recently resigned from his worship/connecting job at a church after 8.5 years of serving there. we've considered that church "our home" for the entire time we've dated/married but God is teaching me that my true home is where He is waiting for me. :) thanks for sharing your journey. -erica (bauer) twietmeyer :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouraging post, Jen. Sometimes we get too "rooted" in our temporary homes here. It's so easy to find security here sometimes. One funny thing that has me cracking up about your post is that you wrote, "then we will finally land in Orlando..." and I read it as, "then we will FIND land in Orlando.." I thought you were buying LAND! HA, ha, ha,ha.
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