Going Home

I’ve been feeling a bit home sick lately - but for which home I cannot say. I miss Lebanon, I miss Georgia, I miss Oklahoma, - all for different reasons - ministry, old friends, even older friends and family, church, familiar scenery, adventure. We’ve struggled so much here to feel rooted and wondered countless times why God put us here. Sometimes it feels like we are in a holding pattern, like we’re trying to tread water upstream, pushing against some invisible wall, or even like we’ve gone backwards somehow or that we’re stuck. Moving to Lebanon and living there was tough (but worth it!). In some ways this has been even harder but for different reasons. However, if Wesley is our reason for being here, it is all well worth it! This reminded me of a blog entry I wrote at least a year ago but never posted. I read it today and it encouraged me. I thought I would finally post it. So here it is in italics.

I have to admit that over the last 6 years or so, I’ve had trouble knowing where “home” is. I lived in Lebanon for almost a year, then back to Ga for 6 months, then to Oklahoma for about 2 and a half years. Oklahoma became my new permanent home but for some reason I had trouble feeling completely settled there perhaps because of my own restless heart or perhaps because it was so different to me than what “home” had been to me in Ga for 30 years- family close by, friends I had known since elementary school - 20-30 year old friendships, beautiful landscapes and lots of memories. But Oklahoma had one thing Georgia did not and that was my wonderful hubby. It also had a church that offered deep, thorough biblical equiping that I never had but longed for and had prayed for. Eventually, the Lord allowed me to develop lasting, deep, godly friendships there that I know I will have for the rest of me life. This too had been a prayer of mine for years.

Then God put it on our hearts to leave that behind, to move to Lebanon. So we up and sold our house and moved to Lebanon, leaving no physical roots in Ok, except those of our friends and church. Home became South Lebanon for however long God wanted us there. It was difficult to plant any roots there not knowing how long we were going to be there but knowing too that our stay was most likely only a 6-9 month stay - not long enough to make a rented place a home, even though we tried hard to do so. We had to travel back and forth to Beirut a lot while we were there too so this made nesting difficult as well. While on one of our trips to Beirut, we were evacuated from that troubled city to a safer mountain retreat with no idea of being able to return to the friends and the few special possessions we had with us in southern Lebanon that made up our temporary home. We were able to get back to retrieve those things and say proper good-byes to our dear friends but for the remainder of our time there in Lebanon, about 1 month, we had to live with a brother-in Christ in Beirut out of our suitcases. We ached to be down south again with the friends we had made and to be settled.

Upon returning to the US we were not sure what the next step was even though we had been praying about it for months. So we became “sojourners,” “vagabonds,” traveling around the country visiting friends and family, living out of our suitcases for five more months. We wound up back in Norman, OK, our former home, for some semblance of normalcy and familiarity to keep our sanity. (I was slowly melting down at that point.)

I have written all of this to say that God has taught me something about “home” in all this, especially the last 8 months. God had taught me to be contented wherever I am physically for however long that might be, to “bloom where I’m planted,” to make the most of it, to see it as permanent even if it’s not. One thing has really stuck with me that a missionary said to us in Lebanon when we were contemplating buying a microwave. He said, “Wherever you are, plant your tent pegs deep.” We didn’t buy the microwave because it was really not all that suitable for the small amount of electricity our house could handle. However, what he said seemed profound at the time though its meaning took months to fully comprehend by living it out experientially. The idea of the tent implies something temporary - not knowing how long you will be in a place, but planting the pegs deep implies that while you’re there staying grounded, making roots, digging into life there, being fully involved. But at the same time being able to pull up those pegs when God says go without being hindered by too much baggage. I recognize that the older we get, the more we accumulate in things, friends, growing family that make it harder to pull up the pegs.

Another thing I’ve learned, and probably the more important thing is that home does not have to be a tangible place. It is not the stuff you put in your home either. It really is something you can’t touch. It is being with the ones you love, it is being fully in God’s will, it is living life on purpose for Christ no matter what or where, it is completely trusting His sovereignty when many things don’t seem to make sense, it is being completely satisfied and fully rested in Christ, safe in His arms, even if nothing around you feels safe or is safe or familiar or comforting.

Something else I’ve learned is that the Lord never fails us, that His grace is sufficient, He holds us in His hands tightly and that His Word is enough for us and completely reliable. We’ve also learned how much we miss and need and long for fellowship with the body of Christ.

There’s a song entitled Going Home that is part of a compilation one of our Lebanon teammates put together. It says somewhat how I feel. “I’ve been feeling kind of restless, I’ve been feeling out of place. I can hear a distance singing, a song that I can’t write and it echoes in what I’m always trying to say. There’s a feeling I can’t capture. It’s always just a prayer away. I want to know the ending, things hoped for and not seen but I guess that’s the point of hoping anyway. I’m confined by my senses to really know what You are like. You are more than I can fathom, more than I can guess, and more than I can see with human sight. But I have felt You with my spirit, I have felt You fill this room and this is just an invitation, just a sample of the whole and I cannot wait to be going home...Going Home. I’ll meet You at the table, I’ll meet You in the air. You are never to young to think about it. I cannot wait to be going home. Face to face face, how can it be... ”

We will probably never feel fully at home here on this earth. But one day we will be home forever, in our real homes, the homes built and intended for us. We won’t ever feel like sojourners, foreigners, aliens, out of place. We’ll be seated at the table of our dear Father who has adopted us for all eternity to be His sons. How beautiful!

Happy Independence Day!

Being the history nut that I am and especially given my love for Revolutionary War history, I wanted to give a timeline of the events leading to the Declaration of Independence.

1765-1775 -

• A series of taxes and acts instituted by the British government to help pay for the French and Indian War. The issue was not so much that the colonies were being taxed but they were being taxed without any representation in the government therefore, making colonists feel as if they were second class citizens without the full rights of those living in England even though many of them had direct British ancestors.
• Boston Massacre 1770, Boston Tea Party 1773.
• Continental Congress 1774, 1775, 1776 - discussions on how to respond to British encroachment in the affairs of the colonies, arguments over reconciliation
• 1774 - Declaration of Rights
• Battles of Lexington and Concord, April 1775
• 1775 - Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms
• 1775 - Falmouth, Massachusetts and Norfolk, Virginia destroyed by British war ships
• Olive Branch Petition, Jan 1776 - a petition of reconciliation with King George which was flatly rejected by the monarch
• Common Sense by Thomas Paine published the day after word of the King's rejection. Paine's sold 150,000 publications and countless others read it as well causing an already weakening sentiment for monarchical rule to almost disappear very quickly. He stated that the war and rebellion was not a revolt against taxation but a fight for the survival of liberty for future generations across the world.
• War campaign in Canada failed leaving many colonists to believe that the only way to win the war was with foreign assistance and the only way to gain help from other nations was by declaring independence from Britain.
• May 1776 - John Adams (who had been itching for independence for at least a year but had waited patiently for the right timing) introduced a resolution to Congress for states to terminate their colonial governments and adopt state constitutions. "Adams's resolution had driven a stake through the heart of the foes of independence everywhere. With considerable truth he could boast that his resolution had initiated 'the most important step that ever was taken in America.'"
• June 1776 - Richard Henry Lee presents a resolution to Congress to officially declare independence from Britain. Congress creates the Committee of Five (Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston.) to prepare a declaration of Independence. Adams chaired the committee, Jefferson was chosen to draft the document. Jefferson wrote the document in a few days time having already thought intensely about independence since the early 1770's. Also, by that time so much had been written in newspapers, books, pamphlets and by colonial assemblies, especially Virginia's Declaration of Rights, regarding independence, drafting the document proved relatively easy for Jefferson.
• The Declaration of Independence was presented to Congress by the Committee of Five on June 29, 1776
• July 1, 1776 Congress discussed independence and voted 9-2 in favor - New York abstained, Pennsylvania and South Carolina opposed, Delaware, tied. Official vote deferred until July 2
• July 2, 1776 - At the end of the day, independence was revisited, debated and the official vote taken - 12-0. New York still abstained.
• July 3 & 4 - the draft revised
• July 4 - The Declaration of Independence adopted in the evening, the last item of business for the day, almost as a side note.
• July 6- the document was published
• July 8 - "Independence was officially proclaimed at noon on July 8 before a crowd of thousands assembled outside the State House (in Philadelphia). Bells pealed all that day and night, Adams told a friend, and soldiers 'paraded on the common, and gave us the Fue de Joy, notwithstanding the scarcity of powder.'"
• July 10- General Washington read the Declaration to the Continental Army in New York City. That night some soldiers and citizens in New York City tore down and decapitated a statue of George III.

"Adams was cautiously exultant. He knew that independence would be accompanied by manifold hazards. He knew too that courage was required 'to ride in this Whirlwind.' Not only was victory not assured, but he trembled at the realization that 'mighty Revolutions... sett many violent Passions as Work.' The only certainty about America's future was its uncertainty. Yet his optimism surpassed his apprehension. From deep within his soul he truly believed that victory would be won, America's republican experiment would succeed, and that both his generation and posterity would benefit from what he and Congress had done. But Adams was also a hardheaded realist who knew full well that 'the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration' would be immense.'"

Quotes from Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson and the American Revolution by John Ferling.