There's no place like home.

I just realized something today. I don't know why the revelation came at this particular time, because this has been the case for a while, but it just hit me all of a sudden. What, you ask? This: the idea of moving doesn't bother me anymore.

If you know anything much about my history, you probably know that I've moved a lot. A lot is an understatement. Well, for some people it may not be an understatement, but for many of the people I know it is. Early on, every time we moved was a devastating thing for me. I could think of few things that were worse than moving. I had to put all of my things in a box and rearrange them at a new place, and had to get used to this new place that I was living, and go to a new school, and meet new people, try to make new friends, say goodbye to the people I did know and would probably never see again, and it was just awful for me. We're talking about the girl who threw up when she started Kindergarten, who had to be bribed to just stand in front of the people at church for approximately a minute at about the age of 5(not say anything, not do anything, just stand there with everyone staring at me). New places, new people, new experiences, none of them were easy adjustments.

But somewhere along the way, I learned to adapt. I had to. I would have had a nervous breakdown if I hadn't of. Well, I actually have had a nervous breakdown or two (or three or four), starting with when I threw up in Kindergarten, but I would have eventually gone past the point of recovery and I would have had to have been committed to a mental institution, where I would shrink away from anyone who passed by and murmur to myself all the time. (That's obviously an exaggeration, but in reality, it's not much of an exaggeration.) Praise be to God that that didn't happen.

Now, this doesn't mean that I love moving, or that I'm looking to move anytime soon. It just means that the idea doesn't make me want to crawl into a corner and assume the fetal position. And that's a big step. If someone walked in right now and told me that I had to move, I wouldn't want to, to be sure, but I'd say, "Okay," and get the process started and look forward to what the future holds.

What got me started thinking about all this was my friend Andrew. He posted a blog today announcing that he, his wife, and their daughter are moving to Iowa. That's a good long way from here. He has been offered a position as the Director of Worship at a church over there. And I got started thinking about what it might be like if I was moving to Iowa or somewhere far away, and I realized that the idea didn't cause me any distress. Who'd 'a thunk it? By the way, you can check Andrew out in various places on the Internet: http://andrewadamsonline.com/ & http://www.myspace.com/andrewadamsmusic . He has a song up that you can listen to, should you choose to. This coming Sunday, I'm actually going to get the chance to sing with him one more time before he heads out, and I'm looking forward to it.

There's another occurrence that took place today that actually relates to this. My youngest brother started talking today about how he doesn't feel at home here at the house we currently live in. I've been there before. And I told him that I just had to learn a long time ago to feel at home no matter where I was, and no matter what the circumstances were. My family has always been together, and that is the most important thing, the thing that really makes home, home. I think that's related to the fact that moving is not such a big deal anymore, I've learned to be comfortable with whatever the circumstances are. Home is where I am right now, and if that were to change tomorrow, the new place I would go to would be home. And that extends beyond just the place I make my dwelling. I've also learned to be at home when I go visit other people. I used to feel so out of place at other people's houses, which made it really hard for me to enjoy people's company. But it's rare now that I ever go someplace and don't feel at home.

As I'm sure you can tell, home, finding home, has been something I struggled with for a long time. It was depressing. I never felt like I belonged anywhere, and if I couldn't feel like I belonged at the place where I lived, then where and how in the world was I going to find a place to belong. A lot of things in my life have helped me deal with that and have brought me to the place that I am today, but one of the things that sticks out the most is the song "Home" by downhere.

At one point, I claimed without hesitation that this was my favorite downhere song. I'm not so quick to say that now, but it's still one of my favorites. For the longest time, I couldn't listen to it without crying, because the message hit so close to home (pun not intended, but appreciated nonetheless). I could go through the song line by line and tell you what each means to me, but I'll just generalize the main point, which is that us Christians have a greater home to look forward to than anything we can find here on the earth. And to think about that was a huge comfort for me, and I had to remind myself that continually, because I kept getting bogged down in finding perfection here. And it was only when I stopped looking for that perfection here, that I was able to accept what I had, and be grateful for it, and be comfortable in it.

If you would like to read them, here are the lyrics:

We want to focus on what we can't see
But this scene is just a fading beauty
In this life, when sorrow steals our joy
We want to walk beyond our circumstances
But our feet run to our own advances
Would you be our way and lead your people on

Oh, Remind us that we have not reached home
Remind us that we have not reached home

Pull apart our good intentions
Break the walls of these dimensions
Paint a picture of our eternity
And we will sing the songs of Heaven
Be the chorus you have chosen
We need Your grace
To echo the saints and journey on

Oh, Remind us that we have not reached home (we have not)
Oh, Remind us that we have not reached home

And as the angels sing Your praises
Let us not forget Your graces
Which far outweigh a world of dreams

Would you remind us that we have not reached home
Oh, Remind us that we have not reached home

Remind us that we have not reached home (we have not reached home)
Oh, Remind us that we have not reached home