When we arrived in Israel, our guide for the 10 days met us at the airport. His first words, "Welcome home."
Home.
I had forgotten that until "I'm Coming Home by Skylar Grey came on iTunes (link in name) just now. I remember smiling politely, as one does when they are in a new place with new people. Oh how those words would ring true in my heart just 10 days later as we packed to leave.
Home.
There are words in the English language that my human heart and worn spirit takes issue with whenever they are spoken in my presence or I come across them in a book. There is no word more complicated for this girl than "home" and so how fitting...
*Deep Sigh*
If you search this blog, you will see there are 46 posts since 2011 with a theme around "home" so as my family can attest, I have proof that I have ALL the words about "home"...and those words are merely the musings of a girl in search of one...in search of what home means...desperate to reconcile the conflict about it in her heart.
You might say I have some "stuff."
*Awkward Laughter*
There was a point while we were in Israel that I simply wondered if I was destined to simply roam the earth. Maybe there was no simple Point A to Point B for my life. I am happiest in two places....Sis' compound (internal joke)...okay three places...anywhere w/Sis and her family...and anywhere I have never been. Travel feels like home to me. Is that weird? Am I weird? Don't answer that.
Last night I met up with a friend and she appeared to be looking deep into my soul...searching for something. Do you have those friends that know something about you that you don't yet know, and they just look at you waiting for it to be revealed to you??? Yeah...me too. My friends freak me out on a regular basis. The double-edge sword of this whole "being known" thing...you are known and sometimes better by others than yourself.
I digress.
I thought 2016 was going to be the easy year. I mean...FINALLY....an easy year after four BRUTAL ones. Nope. This year has been like an archeological expedition. We finally found the site (only took four years) and this year we brought in the heavy equipment.
Good. Grief.
....and this is where I stopped typing yesterday.
I couldn't even.
*Deep Breath*
I just listened to a beautiful sermon on I Kings 19. The title of the sermon was on defeating discouragement and depression, but all I heard was "the journey of restoration" because I am a girl committed to not only my own restoration, but other's....
Whenever I hear a pastor mention that God uses tarnished vessels for his glory, I feel a competitive spirit rise up inside of me as if to say, "Yeah....but he hasn't seen ME." (I hear my Sis getting angry right now.) The deal is though...he has SEEN me. AND...isn't that the point?
SO.....Here is what I loved about Israel.
I can't be too broken for it. Israel is the epitome of "hot mess" with its complicated history, complicated present, melting pot of ideas on who and what Jesus was/is, war and religion, politics and commerce. It is like when Jesus broke the bread, he wasn't simply symbolizing the breaking of him for us...but the breaking of him OVER Israel (with all that could symbolize). It isn't simply the home of the Jews....it is the home of ALL of us....for ALL of us. The whole complicated, broken lot of us.
While in Israel, I bought a piece of artwork that I am sitting staring at right now...with fresh eyes. It is painted on Israeli stone (all the buildings there are built with it) and it is of the parting of the Red Sea. there are people all along the middle of the sea and they are facing the wall of water. Now there is certainly some artistic license with the story but who are any of us to say someone or someones didn't stand in that same posture that day...I digress. So I am sitting here staring at this piece and I see myself. It isn't simply about walking through, but also of standing up...to fear....to the wall....of water.
....breathe...
Sometimes we can't cross over into home until we stand up to what is keeping us from it.
What is keeping me from home?
You?
I'm coming home....and I don't have a clue what that means, but I feel it. I feel it rising up inside of me. I feel the wave coming. I feel the knowing.
....and just like the words of the song..."...no matter what it takes..." means no matter what and so that reads (to me) as more work. The journey of restoration is partly physical and partly spiritual (thank you Archie for that this morning). God meets us where we are....
I'm not giving up.
Thank you to Israel for being a "spiritual marker" for me...and that Jordan River....
...a story for another post.
For now I am reveling in the fresh commissioning for the next leg of the journey. The leg I didn't even know about until right this very minute. Right. Now.
...and that is how it works.
Don't mind me laughing nervously over here. ;)
"He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake."
Psalms 23:3
Labels: Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Home, I Kings 19, Israel 2016, Psalms 23, Skylar Grey, Walt Whitman
