The Way Home

Anne Morrow Lindberg said that without a pencil in hand, she was blind. I feel blind too. My wandering thoughts need the eye of the pencil, the discipline of the pen and the retrospective wisdom that comes from simmering in thoughts and happenings I’ve written down. Then viewing all under the instruction of the flawless thoughts of God recorded in His timeless Word is the best part of this exercise. My thoughts are empty without His thoughts, lost without His counsel, lonely without His approval.

Journaling preserves His personal words to me, words that trickle across my life. Like coming upon a clear, singing brook in the woods, they delight and refresh. They link together over time, providing a review of His paths of purpose and an endless flow of hope for my journey home. They are tributaries flowing into one river, pushing forward, going one way.

“Home is where the heart is”, the old saying says. Don’t we all love home? It is during a time when I am caught in the in-between that my roots reach deep for the solace of home. But I’m finding it is not just a building and a bed and a place to keep my dishes. The pursuit of home is leading me outside of walls and wells and kitchen tables. Jesus said he was going away to prepare a place for us–a forever home. We know the way home, he said. The man who made no earthly place his home points the way—“I am the way.”

All of my being seems to be involved in the yearning for home. But what am I really longing for? At times, it feels like the wish to hear the rain patter across my own tin roof and see the emerging of my perfectly placed hyacinth bulbs waiting in a row for the warming soil to bring on their dreamy, fragrant surprise. When my dogs, in hot pursuit of a gopher or mole, dig a hole in the lawn, I wish to stamp my approval of their instinctual priorities while I fill in the hole myself. This works best in one’s own yard, in one’s own home. 😉 At times, I know this is only a glint of what I’m longing for, and what my home is to be. He has prepared it, He is the way there whether in the body or beyond it. I will always find home in Jesus.

I have loved home with a deep and nostalgic love. I have planted gardens for grandchildren (though I have no grandchildren yet). I have planted trees for their climbing and fruit for their sneaking. I have spent years making home a place to grow old in and a place to share. I have looked out each tall window and created something for each view; a bell in a butterfly bush, a bird house on a post, a redbud to flame a spring morning and a row of daffodils that, for a couple of weeks in February, herald the hope of the ages. I’ve meditated on my childhood home; its walls, its feeling, its presence still here in my life. When you come into my home I wish peace to envelop you. I wish that the pictures, baskets, flowers, fragrance, books and furniture cause you to feel warmly welcome. That is what they did for me. I want it to feel like home. Maybe what I want you to feel through my doors is peace, truth, goodness, kindness, hospitality and love ….I want you to feel Jesus. He is truly the feeling of home. These doors are always present and open wherever I go.

Hinterhaus this morning, is not a home, but a shed with a name in the back of a property in town. I have made it a cozy place to come to. I have been given its keys and the freedom to fix it up to my liking. I have hung pictures and placed a desk and bookshelf for my collection. Across the massive lawn is the lovely, sage colored house where I cook, sleep, shower and live in the hospitality of my dear friend and cousin. Throughout the bible I encounter Father’s intention to bring His people into good lands in which to grow food, build homes, have families and live in peace. In these last days He continues to point us toward the true way home, a promised land already prepared for us, a home that will never need replacing again.

For today I will live in the sage house, write in the little shed out back I call Hinterhaus, and I will continue on the good path, the ancient way of belief and trust until it leads me all the way home. For each season, each assignment and purpose leading to that final place is decorating the way to the front door. If it were me, I would plant peonies along the path for spring, coneflowers, sunflowers and black-eyed Susan for summer, I’d sow goldenrod and chrysanthemum for the fall path and pansy through the winter, but He has His own plan and He decorates my path with beauty and purpose, sometimes watering through storm.

And I will see the way better if I tippy-type it in among these pages. So, welcome to my home-away-from-home, Hinterhaus Journal……