Home Is... Where?

Thanksgiving countdown: 6 days!!

I cannot explain to you strongly enough HOW DARN EXCITED I am to be going home. I haven't seen my house since August. I have never been away from home so long in my life. When I went to UW-Madison I went home once a month since it was only an hour and half away... but the 7 hour drive is a little more taxing to make now that I go to MLC. I mean, it's doable. But women's soccer kept me stuck here over fall break and I just haven't made it back.

By the time I finally go home next week I'll have been away for 95 days. Since May, I've only been at home for 5 days over midsummer break+12 hours between August 19th-20th that was turnaround time between camp and college. So really, it feels like I have been away a lot longer. I have spent the last three summer at Camp Phillip, but even then I got to go home/see important people fairly regularly. This is the most anticipated home-coming for me personally of my whole life. I. CANNOT. Wait.

I just feel that when I came to MLC, everything else that I left behind in Milwaukee, Wautoma, and Madison all just stopped and would be the same, waiting for me when I return. Like everyone just froze or they're on a laptop's "sleep" mode. It's a similar feeling to how you used to feel when you were playing Barbies as a child (or last month... what? Did I say that?) You could leave Barbie and Ken in the red convertible and a week later they would still be sitting there grinningly waiting for you, lost in plastic rapture. People in my life aren't like Barbie and Ken though. They're mobile. They morph and feel and change just as frequently as I personally do. In 95-plus days a lot of the people I care the most about might have morphed in ways I wasn't around to witness - which is both an exciting, frightening, foreign feeling. Going home will certainly be interesting!

What really constitutes "home" during your college years?
"Home" used to be that place you lived as a child. The place with mom and dad, with your own backyard and your own room. It was your base. Your sanctuary. It (for the most part) didn't move. It was a recharge point, refuge, rock. As high school demands crept into your life, it became more and more of a checkpoint since you were always out and about. And once graduation hit, you hit the road and your "home" hit the fan. At least, for me it did. Now that I'm in college, I live at my childhood house for 3-4 weeks over Christmas, a weekend here and there, 2-3 weeks in May, and Thanksgiving break. That's it. I don't even go home for spring break or summer. About every 3 months I have to pack my whole life into gray tote boxes and shuffle my life down dorm halls, cram it into backseats trunks of tiny college junker cars, and move. It's worse in summer - I can only set up camp for a week and then I'm on the move again! In the beginning it was novel and exciting, but 3 years into it (wow - three years of college already?!) the luster's wearing thin. Part of me is just longing for the day I have a place where I can set up shop permanently. All I want is to be able to not have to wear flip flops in the shower and to have the ability leave my toothbrush by the sink. Is that kind of permanence too much to ask for?

What is home? Is it still your childhood house? Does it only take two-by-fours and mortar to make a house a home?

Is home just the place you lay your head at night - so home can be found anywhere, from a hotel in Argentina to hut in Moscow?

Is your office your home? Or work? That little cubicle or desk, is that the place you truly feel accepted and at ease? When you're flipping burgers, is that home for you?

Do you find "home" in your hobbies, sports, music, books, or TV?

Is "home" only found once, in one place, at one time? Or can you have many homes in a lifetime?

Is "home" now your group of friends? Is home found among your newly acquired family all living on your college dorm floor together? Is mutuality and college camaraderie enough to breed kinship?

Or is home found in your vices?

Money?

Stability?

Humor?

Or is "home" found in love?

Suddenly being thrust into a nomadic culture of semester-long leases and summer internships means many college students feel like they're reeling. All of sudden their permanence, their stability just got ripped out from underneath their feet; they're thrust into a sea of novelty and change. They have the chance for the first time in their lives to make their own choices. Do they want to keep going to church like their parents? Do they want to start voting Democratic after hearing years of Republican tirades at the dinner table? These college kids are footloose. They're nomads. They can choose! And people choose to search for solace and permanence we all desire in the arms of a live-in girlfriend or in the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniel's. These aren't the right places to look for home.
While romance, hazy Friday nights, or even money can give people the warm fuzzy feelings of acceptance, love, and joy that "home" used to fulfill in our lives, eventually they bottom out on you. Your girlfriend could ditch you and your "love" for "Han's from Norway, the guy she met at the gym with Brad Pitt's face and Jesus' abs" (name that movie quote), the drunken nights can start feeling seedy and hollow as you inch up into your later 20's, and with the economy tanking, money is by no means something to rely on right now. Is there anything remotely solid we can hold on to in the ever-fluctuating life of a nomad?

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore, we WILL NOT fear though the earth give way, and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging... God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day." -Psalm 45:1-3,5

God is our home. Even as nomads traveling through the sketchy path of life, His omnipresence in not only the daily events of our lives but in our hearts leaves no room for worry or doubt. He fills up the hole that we try and cram worthless idols into. And His love covers all our flaws.

The other day I was feeling cranky, worried, and stressed about things in my life that I can't control. I was geeking out about God's plan for my life and I was wondering if choices I made recently really were part of His plan after all, because it felt like I had made a horrible mistake. So when I was feeling down, what did I do? First I looked at Chuck Norris jokes. That was good for a laugh but it didn't help my emotional wrenching state of mind. So then I looked at Natalie Dee, and pardon the French, but I found this one that sadly resembled me:

Really, in the grand scheme of life, I have everything. I seriously may be the most privileged person in the entire world: stable family, amazing friends, the opportunity of an education, a great boyfriend, my health, talents, food on the table, a roof over my head, I get to live with my friends, I don't have to worry about money, I'm employable, I have two legs, arms, eyes, and ears... I could go on forever! And best of all, I have faith. So many people in the world don't know the saving Gospel message that Jesus became human, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross so that now everyone can go to eternal life if they just believe in Him! I'm blessed beyond belief. These little things that worry us nomads are not important - God's got it all in control.

(It's just a lot easier to say that and a lot harder to actually put that into practice, you know?)

Ultimately, God is our home. We can live as many places as we want to while we're all here on earth, but in the end, our citizenship is in heaven.

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am"
- John 14:1-3

Count your blessings, enjoy time with family and friends, and above all else, remember where your home truly is. God is love!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Return

So I keep journals. You probably know this. But I really wish you could read them all. This won't happen; they're far too personal for me to probably share with anyone but my husband and kids someday. I'd be okay with the general public reading them after I'm dead and gone, but certainly not now.

I wish you could read them because nearly every entry starts in the same fashion:

12:45am. Augustana 109. 3 November 2010. Song mood: "King of Anything" by Sara Barellies.

"Well, first and foremost an apology is in order. I am sooooo sorry, I didn't finish writing about _______________. I suck. I'm sorry."


I don't know really who my journals are to, but I usually seem to address them to "you", whomever "you" may be. And they always start out apologetic because although I journal frequently, I never say what I need to say fully. I always "run out of time" or am "too tired" or something. There's always some excuse. But I need to apologize to myself in these entries, and I don't know why. Huh.


I tell you these things because I am apologizing to you know. I was really proud of my semi-weeklyish blog posts and I was excited for awhile because I believed people really read them. This made the author in me really thrilled and I loved it, but I got really caught up in life here and chucked blogging by the wayside. I used to check this for new comments on posts even before I checked Facebook (whoa, what?!) and when I logged in today this had all the attraction and warmth as a dust-blown ghost town complete with tumbleweeds rumbling down the lane. For this, I heartily apologize from the depths of my literary heart. Truly.


Apologies make people weirdly vulnerable. When you apologize to someone you're putting your emotions, heart, and pride on the chopping block; you're throwing yourself to the mercy of rejection. But have you ever been apologized to by someone who really hurt you? Or have you knocked yourself down off the totem pole of self-love and groveled for forgiveness at the feet of someone whose soul was ripped to shreds by your cutting words? I've experienced both, and can I ever tell you that afterwards in either case you just feel... clear. Clear like saran wrap. Does that make sense? I feel like saran wrap after apologies - clear, easy, clean...

It's a blow to your personal pride to admit to someone "you were right, I was wrong". It never is an easy thing to do, but sometimes to preserve relationships in your life you have humble yourself -which is something I seem to usually cowardly avoid because it's difficult. However, if we avoid the difficult things in life forever, life isn't going to be that interesting. You'll never have closure about anything and your pent up frustration just might make you blow your top like an over-shaken soda can.

Jesus, as usual, was the perfect model of humility, and gave His followers a deeply intimate look at what truly humbling yourself before men really means. It means we're supposed to wash each other's feet. We're supposed to show love to those people who deeply hurt us, asking nothing in return. It means loving people who got the label of "weird", "ugly", or "worthless" stamped on their forehead by society. We're supposed to help, respect, and forgive everyone - everyone. And it means that we too need to realize our utter sinfulness and humbly ask God for His forgiveness every single day.

How often do you ask God to forgive your sins? I know I struggle with that a great deal sometimes because I play the "compare game" - you've done it too. "I really can't be that bad, I go to a Lutheran college," "At least I'm not doing pot," "I could just be sleeping around with everyone like_________ does, but I'm not so that makes me better than ________"... and the list goes on. When I play that game I always feel like that awful Pharisee in Luke 18 -

" The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people - robbers, evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector"(verse 11).

How terribly, terribly prideful.

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, "God have mercy on me, a sinner" (verse 13)

I need to return to asking God in fear and trembling to forgive my sins like this tax collector did instead of pridefully strutting before His throne, dictating what He should do in my life. Too often we forget God could quite literally nuke us in a heartbeat - and should nuke us in a heartbeat. Who are we to yell at Him, demand things of Him, or even ask for His forgiveness - when it was us that murdered God?

"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted" (Luke 18:14).

I'm the chief of sinners, yet He still loves me. I'll never be able to get over that. It's always the best news in the world.

So, in sum, I am apologizing to you and asking your forgiveness for not blogging in like 10 years. I'm also going to go apologize to God for all the awful crap I do everyday, and I would encourage you to do the same. Return to routine confession before God. Afterwards, you'll feel easy and clear - just like saran wrap!

"Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord
And He will lift you up
Higher and higher
And He will lift you up"
- verse 1 "Humble Thyself", Camp Phillip.

(And I might even try to return to regular blog posts?)