Home Is Wherever I'm With You

So as I'm sitting down to write this post, that waywaywayWAY overplayed song by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros is pulsing through my mind.

Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is wherever I'm with you
Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is when I'm alone with you

Ha. Now it's in your head too. Let's suffer together for a minute. Sorry I'm not sorry. 

Ok no but really. Going to Hawaii, my dear home, for Thanksgiving was the best thing ever for me. I had a "Your-Life-In-Perspective" Aneurism.

Ok so yeah sure, I was real homesick for the first couple months I was here. Pining for home might even be the appropriate term.  You all know that story.

And I think you've all heard me say that, Hallelujah, Thank you Jesus, after those few months, I feel like myself again. 

I laugh a lot and sing even more. I am so grateful for the family the Lord is establishing around me here.

But something clicked for me while I was back home. Something much deeper than what words can really express. Which is why, naturally, I chose to blog on it. 

As I sat in the quiet of my old living room, sitting with my Bible open and my mom's Keurig coffee in front of me, I began to reflect on all the Lord has done with me in the past few months. A verse began to resonate with me:

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴ If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

  

Well. Not a verse for the faint of heart or the fair-weather Christian. As I reflected on my time here the last 4 months, I know that some of my time here will pass through the fire and burn up as hay and stubble. Those months I spent worshiping with a selfish heart, wasting time fulfilling my own desires of my flesh, serving God out of vain conceit. 

But...

I also know, without a doubt, that there have been foundation building moments that will emerge as gold. I know the context of this verse and though I might be running a little far with it, I feel that my personal foundation with the Lord is the one on the altar stone in this picture.

I know my time here is not in vain! As I sat staring at those stupid glorious mountains outside of my window, I knew that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in life. That without a doubt, this is where the Lord has called me. Not to the ocean, or the mountains, or the most relaxed coffee shop job in the world on Oahu. 

But to Fountain Valley ("A Nice Place to Live"). The suburbs. Orange County. And here's the best part--I couldn't wait to come back. I was so full of joy at the thought of returning to be with my Circles family. To be back in school of worship. To be back home. 

As I sat thinking of the GOOD things He has done, each of you came to my mind. What a good gift (or 30 gifts i should say) He's given me! 

What an amazing chance to do His kingdom work! 

What an amazing thing to make my home in Christ. 

Now I get it, albeit in a different way than those silly Magnetic Zeros, but I get it...

Home is wherever I'm with You.

  

He Sent a Helper

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."  -Romans 8:26


"What am I doing here?"


This one question I have asked consistently since arriving to California. In my season of doubt, it poured forth as a groaning of my spirit, asking how this girl wound up in this place, surrounded by a living Urban Outfitters catalog and wondering when she could jump on a plane back home. 

"What am I doing here?"

Ah, but now my mission is clear. I am no longer struggling to find out how I ended up here. I know the answer: The faithful I AM has brought me here. To worship Him. To know Him better.

 And yet, the question remains. 

Perhaps it is not so much "what am I doing here?" as much as it is "HOW am I still here?"

So SO SO SO many times I wanted to quit. So many times I decided this life--in this weird, cold alternate universe I was living in--was not worth hanging around to see what God called me to. If indeed God was even real. I'm out. Peace. 

"How am I still here?"

As I came out of my dry and doubting season, I realized that no amount of strength or persistence or steadfastness on my part has kept me forging forth. I now know that in my times of doubt, when I decided that I knew better than the Creator and this was NOT where I was called, in my times of scouring the internet for plane tickets home "just for fun," a Great High Priest was pleading for me. He was speaking a secret language with the Father that I would never be able to express--because my mortal words fail to dictate the will of God. 

And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

When I prayed for redemption from a physical place in my life, the Spirit prayed for my redemption from the hardness of my own heart. When I prayed to be released by the Lord, to just have Him let go of me, the Son triumphed in His mighty prayer next to the right hand of God, "This one has been bought with a price, We won't let her go."

Therefore the Son is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them. Hebrews 7:25

Be encouraged with me. 

Whatever we face, we know that His perfect will for our lives is written in perfect love. 

That His ways are always perfect, even when our lives aren't. 

That He wants His perfect will for our lives and knows exactly how to, and does, pray for it. 

And that as we cry out to Him, He is already interceding for us in a way beyond what we can articulate. He speaks with the same heart as His prayer that kept Christ on the cross--so that it would be accomplished. 

Before the throne of God above,

I have a strong and perfect plea

a great High Priest whose name is Love

who ever lives and pleads for me

My name is graven on His hands

My name is written on His heart

I know that while in heaven He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart