Her words strike through to my heart.
She, too, is a mom of two young boys. She, too, is a wife of few but meaningful years. She, too, is displaced from all she has known and held dear.
In a strange new land her heart cries out for normalcy, constancy, familiarity. She yearns for home...and struggles with the reality that she is to create one here.
Immediately I am drawn to her- her light, her transparency, the way I know that story- that history.
She is me, minus three years in Iowa.
I watch her and can scarcely believe my eyes. Her struggles are ones I know intimately- the fears and frustrations and hurts and joys and guilt and love and triumph and overwhelm...I can speak her language and she also, can speak mine.
And my soul thanks the Lord that I have something to offer her, that she has something to offer me.
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"How was it?" I asked her, wondering about her first trip back "home" since she and her husband moved here three months earlier.
"It was good. Both easier and harder than I had expected."
And then she recounts the moment, this moment that reminded me of how far I have yet to come. For none of us, not one, has arrived.
"T. told me how much he missed home. And here I thought he meant his previous home, the one I long for always. But no, he missed this new home, the one I have worked so hard to make him. And that warmed my heart, settled my fears, and allowed me to start settling in myself."
And I stand back in marvel.
How? How does that wisdom sink in so quickly? She went on to tell me of how she had been so pouring her time and efforts into creating a home for her two sons, that when this two year old told her he missed that place, she wept. It was all she wanted- for him to feel at home.
So often I get wrapped up in what I need. What I want. What would make me more comfortable here. And I lose perspective that I am a mom- I create, I serve, I inspire, I build for my family what someday my own kids will think back on as "home." I want them to remember not what this place was to their mom, but what this place meant to them. I want them to aspire to create wonderful Christmas mornings of their own, filled with joy and peace and goodness; days foreshadowed by those we hold in this house for them.
But this means turning my idea of home on its head. Letting go of my longings and desires to the extent that it allows me to build up for them...and for myself...a place worthy of being called home. And that goes so far beyond this furnishing or that meal. No, a home is built with the heart- the wholehearted love and care of a mom not clinging desperately in her deepest being to someplace else.
That sounds strange, you may say.
I know. It would, until you have been so far, wept for home, yearned for that place. And then you would know how that piece of you, though invisible for most days, does show itself in strange ways. Pictures don't get hung on the walls. I don't plant trees. Permanence, they mean permanence: these nails in walls and roots in ground. Friendships are shallow and meant for temporary happiness instead of deep, lasting growth. Whether or not I know it there is that piece of me that works against my whole self being here. And that creeps into how I build this place for my kids, for my husband, for myself.
I watch her yearn to create that sense of home for her kids and I want to have that heart for my family. To worry more about the home I am making for them than for my own comfort. Because this place, any earthly home, is here for but a breath of time. A sanctuary, a resting place. It is not the ultimate. It is not the end. We are but travelers, each one, setting our hearts toward the one true Home worthy of our unabashed longing. Here, on this journey, I am called to build up this home in Iowa worthy of comforting, teaching, transforming souls, and that doesn't happen one foot in and one foot out.
And I can say it and know it in my mind, but to live it out in my heart- that is where the battle takes place.
And so, in this month of Christmas, she gave me an unexpected gift. She renewed my focus, reminding me that I am here not for myself but for others. And I am setting out ready to create "home" for those boys in my life closest to me.
Truly, my prayer is that we will be home for the holidays this year. And that you will be, too, wherever you are.
2 comments:
I totally know what you are meaning now that I have been away. Isn't it great that mom and dad made us a home that we yearn for on a daily basis weather we acknowledge it or not? I too want to give my child and future children that same feeling.
To make a home for our family is something that every mother wishes for and we strive to achive. I believe that we can make that wonderful home for our kids and make it something that they will long for when they grow up while still having a part of our hearts with our true home.
Come to think of it, When I get truly down and out in a state of loneliness, I long for the friendships and companionship that I grew up with, not the state, the neighborhood, or the house that we grew up in. I want my mom, dad and my sister. Yeah it would be great to have my childhood bestfriends as well, but the people are who I long for, not the material things. So also keep that in mind when you are making a home for your family.
Remember that famous saying "Home is where your HEART is".... it's not the structure that you grew up in.
Good luck with making those lasting memories with your boys and remeber, you are the one they will long for, not the house that you swept.
Oh Trace, you tug at my heart with this one. From someone that has lived 1800 miles from a place called "home" for almost 33 yrs., it is a road that not all have traveled or understood. They say "home is where the heart is", that's the hard part, your heart is divided, there are those that you love scattered. A part of me will always call Iowa my home, because of fond memories of childhood years growing up there. But I can't allow myself to stay there in thought, because "home" is also Washington, where I've spent my married years & raised my children, more fond memories. It's a freeing day when you realize that it is your turn to accept the baton and responsibility in "building memories" for your children and your family. I can't recapture the past to repeat it, and when I try it ends up a disappointment. But I can move forward, and in that, discovering all that God would have me to be.
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