Home?

It's a funny thing going back "home." After a visit to our old stomping grounds in Hutchinson this weekend, I realize again how temporary things can seem to make enormous change in our lives. Today I experienced the loss of something, an undefinable longing, that made no sense to my mind, but was nonetheless palpable and real. It was the sense of looking for a permanent anchor, the sense that things are not the way the were, combined with the people who still care so deeply for me and my family (although some didn't realize we had even moved! They assumed we were going to one of the other 6 services throughout the weekend...).

But, the longing for home (even though Hutch was only home for a few years) was still there. The desire to find what we had thought would/could be permanent, when it was only temporal. To return to the church we thought needed us so deeply, only to realize again that it was we who needed the church. Most interesting of all (and deeply frightening to be honest), was the sense that I have been uniquely equipped through my struggles, trials, failures, successes, and friendships that there is no other place I could be but where I am now. The reason that scares me is that some of the things I get to deal with aren't fun, and in fact are in my top ten list of things I never wanted to experience/see!

However, it goes back to God creating me with a unique S.H.A.P.E. If I didn't have the spiritual gifts I've been given, I wouldn't be useful here. If my heart and passion wasn't for students and worship, I wouldn't fit here. If my abilities didn't help me minister, I would fail miserably. If my personality wasn't insanely outgoing and loveable, I would never really relate to students the way I do. But, if my experiences hadn't happened, if I had been given a do-over every single time I screwed up, I wouldn't have the grace, mercy, and patience necessary to effectively take Jesus to the world. Instead, I would be just another plastic Christian going to a perfect church in my perfect world where sin and imperfection aren't allowed. I would be one to condemn rather than to extend forgiveness, the crowd dragging the woman caught in adultery to Jesus rather than my Savior who asked her "Who is there that condemns you? Go and sin no more..." It's amazing to me to see that now. I wish I hadn't had to experience so much grace to be able to give grace more freely, as the grace I received covered a multitude of sins which the world would have been better without.

All said, we long for home because we are not home here. Not meaning that El Dorado isn't home, or that Hutch wasn't home, or that Sterling was never home, or that Norman is not my home, but that God has something better for me. Greater things are yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city, right here, right now. The question becomes, am I paralyzed by a lack of normality or have I embraced the different and run after where and whatever God called me to?

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