Almost Home

The last few minutes of a road trip home are usually the toughest. When you're so close to home, you can almost taste it. The anticipation of turning the corner onto your street... walking in that front door, seeing the faces of those you love, reuniting with that piece of your heart you left behind.

There's nothing like that feeling of coming home. And there's nothing like those last minutes in the car, when your entire body seems to be straining towards something just slightly out of reach.

This year has my heart feeling like that. 

Some days I'm so homesick, I can hardly stand it. The only difference is, as I write this I am actually sitting in my home, with my family close by. Joy upon joy, grace upon grace, fills every room of our house. These four walls are where I spend most of my life, and it's a life I'm grateful for. This is my home. 

Except it isn't. 

My heart still aches for someplace else. 

C.S. Lewis wrote it well in his book, Till We Have Faces: 'It was when I was happiest that I longed most. The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing... to find the place where all the beauty came from.'  

The sweetest thing, indeed.

- - - 

It's been months since I wrote on here. Almost a year, in fact. Raising two little girls has kept me entertained, busy, and constantly learning. Then there's been that other small thing, Corona something or other, that has turned the world upside down.

And then there's been the riots. And there's been the lives that matter or don't matter or matter less or matter more. And there's been the red versus blue, the left versus right, the mask versus no mask... and one look at my daughters' sweet faces in the midst of it all has me praying for courage in a way I've not experienced before. 

What to write, when most everything in my heart has had two sides to it? Should I write about the way the slow pace has suited me these past several months, or should I write about the loneliness I've experienced due to it? Should I write truthfully about the joys of motherhood this past year, or share the struggles in hopes of encouraging other moms? Should I write about the things I'm learning in Scripture, or should I simply pray about them instead and keep my fingers off the keys? 

Or I could write about the simple details of our day... the books, the snuggles, the crafts, the methods, the table talks, all the little choices that make up a life. But it all seems so small. Small and precious. More suited for poetry than a blog; more suited for prayers than for posting.

The truth is, I lack the gumption to rush and grab my laptop in every empty moment. I say I would rather be reading... but how often do I say that because I lack the courage to write something myself? How I pray for discernment here!

Yet somehow, in between the potty training and the preschool, the exercising and the reading, the laundry and the dishes, there is that sweetest thing that keeps pressing to be written. 

So after eleven months, this is my first attempt at dipping my toes back in the water. Because I'm homesick, and there's a place I'm longing for... and I think that both the longing and the Creator who designed my heart with it need to be mentioned more, and written about more, and thought about more. But also, because until I get to the place I'm longing for, there's a lot of joy to be found in the living... and in the writing, the glorious writing down of it all.