Sometimes we need to go Home…

Then all the people left, each for his own home, and David returned home to bless his family (1 Chronicles 16:43).

I grew up on the dusty plains of Southwest Oklahoma and Northern Texas. We lived on the border, so you can say I grew up in Texhoma. That’s what they call it in those parts. My spell check doesn’t recognize it, but it really is a word. I promise.

It’s been two years since my last visit. The busyness of life and the cost of travelling kept me from going there last summer, but this year the arrival of a new life expedited my trip home. Cost threatened my ability to go, but God provided big time and made it clear I needed to return. I love it when He makes it so clear. So, I bought my ticket, hopped a plane, and spent a week with my niece and her sweet family to help with her newborn and three year old.

Home. The word stirs up different emotions in each of us. It is a good place, a place filled with warm fuzzy memories for some hearts, but for others it is a place of pain–and for many of us it is a place of both.

My military husband and I have been married almost 23 years, so Texhoma hasn’t been home for a long time. But each time I return to that sparse, dry, farm country with fields sprinkled by grazing cattle and combines cutting golden wheat, cowboys dressed in starched jeans, white straw hats, and silver belt buckles, I am transformed into that little girl who loved riding horses with her Papaw. I’m reminded that the red dirt runs through my blood. I’m really a cow-girl at heart though I’ve not owned a pair of true cowgirl boots in years.

I needed to go home. I needed to remember who I am and where I came from. I needed to remember that I still have a family who loves me and needs me maybe even more than before because of the losses we have suffered in the past five years. And I need them too. I love how God knows what we need even when we don’t.

He is so faithful.

In a transit world where people move away from family  it is so important that we make the effort to return every once in awhile. Keep the lines of communication open. Love much. Laugh together. Remember the heart strings that connect you. Life is short.

Sometimes we just need to go Home….I have a feeling somebody needs to hear those words. You’ve been hesitant. You’ve been wrestling. Go home.

Much grace,

andy