home.

i'm an overthinker. i've started this post about 5 times and still, i've got no words on the page. i long to write and then i sit with space to do it, and nothing. 

the mind that churned all day suddenly falls blank.

i can't make it make sense. 

here's the thing - i read all sorts of quotes and reminders about writing. all the time. i read books about it. i get all amped up in my gut that maybe i actually have something to say. that maybe i should listen to the advice - just push on and continue and put words on the page. 

but then i go blank. then i get scared that what i have to say makes no difference at all. 

i get stuck in this rut of knowing that we are all imago Dei, and yet, almost because of that it feels like it makes no difference whether i write anything down. 

yes, this kind of stuff rotates around in my mind daily. it's a struggle in here, let me tell you. it's maddening to think that i'm supposed to write and yet - nothing comes out.

i want to matter, friends. i think you do too. and i think the thought that i might not makes my soul ache like little else can. 

every fall and winter i'm reminded of how far from home i am. because despite all of the good parts about where we live and where we are, i'm not home. and after reading a phenomenal book by andrew peterson {adorning the dark if you're wondering} i now think about how appropriate it is to think that i'm not home every time i think about not being home. {still with me?} 

because i'm not home. home doesn't look like this spinning ball of rock filled with God's fallen masterpieces. in my heart it's still full of soccer in the backyard with my big brother, and catching minnows in the creek. home means the quiet hum of the turnpike and my dad's truck parked outside of my bedroom window. i think of steelers games on tv and building forts after snowstorms. i think of our sledding hill and learning to ride my bike in the driveway. i think of the time i put my hand through the glass on the storm door because getting there before my brother mattered far more than a cut on my arm. i think of launching myself off the porch into a giant pile of leaves. i think of passing the ball with my dad for hours in the front yard. i think of fires in the fireplace and climbing on top of the monkey bars in the backyard. 

the last of these outlived all the rest. staring at the stars from the top of the monkey bars somehow grounded me once the rest of the world showed its true colors. 

home lasted for a decent chunk of my childhood and slowly slipped away along with my naivete about the world. the brokenness of reality became clearer.

the lack of home is hard. but we're all nomadic beings looking for a space that will wrap its arms around us like only Jesus can. i think we all feel it, but i know i do.

i feel it a lot when we drive home to pittsburgh. because i always realize that no matter how much i'd love to move back, and no matter how much i love the city, and no matter what fun things we get to do while we're there - the home we go back to is still not the home of my childhood. 

my childhood home left long before my mom sold the house and moved. 

it will never come back. 

i don't think i'll ever stop searching for pieces of home on this side of heaven even though i know i will never truly find it here.

how much more grateful am i that my savior knew what true home meant, and he gave it up to come here? he allowed himself to be constrained by space and time and surrounded by the brokenness of humanity. surrounded by people who let him down and betrayed him time after time after time. he knew what would happen when he came. when he entered in to all of the messiness that comes with this broken creation. but he did it anyway. he fasted from the only true home there is to come for us.

so when home lets you down this christmas season {as it inevitably will} remember that your thirst for home will not be quenched here. catch the pieces of it while you can. but the longing will only grow stronger as you catch those glimpses. 

remember that nostalgia lies, but Jesus doesn't.

xoxo