Thursday, October 18, 2007

Come Be My Light

First, thank you everyone who wrote encouraging notes on and off the blog and for the phone call and prayer...it helped my outlook. I'm still in the painful and stiff phase of the CFS, however, my outlook seems brighter. It really did feel good to just write about it and "get if off my chest."

Since I wrote the quotes from Amy Carmichael, I have been thinking about her idea of God being our home. It's kind of funny, but not really, that that would jump off the page at me. I grew up in Everett/Lake Stevens/Mukilteo, Washington. When I return it seems foreign. Yuppies everywhere, traffic, rudeness. It's just not the same. I feel like a foreigner, a visitor or someone who doesn't belong. My adopted "home", Bellingham, where I lived from 1990 until I married...well, it's still lovely, the people are still friendly and my church family welcomes us each time we visit with open arms. I still maintain friendships with nurses, doctors and staff that I worked with and I love going back. But many things have changed and time has marched on without me. It doesn't feel like home. Where we live in CA has never quite become home. It is home...I've been here for almost 9 years, but here too, I feel like an Outsider. As my husband and I have researched different areas for re-location (we love the new friends we are making in our church family but this is not a healthy place for me to live with my asthma!), I keep wondering, "Will I find home? Where will it be?" If I think on it too long, the ideas grow in my mind. It's a slippery slope from research/planning to discontent/Cinderella thinking.

I've always told my husband that I would be happy anywhere, even if I hated it, even it if it were a cardboard box under a freeway overpass, as long as he were with me. Naturally, that wouldn't be my first choice! LOL But truly, he brings me joy and I have grown as a person because of his love. It would be foolishness to allow him to meet all my needs, or to allow any one person to meet all my needs, make me happy or bring me fulfillment.

That is why I can only ever have One True Home. I am reminded too of the verses that say that we are not of this world; this world is not our home, and I realize that I have had Home with me all along. I feel now as if I can sigh! It's a relief! It truly will not matter where I live, where we live, whether or not there is enough room or if the roof leaks. One day the trumpet will sound and "we're gonna blow this pop stand"! Until then I will grow content in my Home wherever my earthly dwelling may be.

Isn't it odd that the simplest things often take the most time and heartache to learn?

Appropriately my current reading is Come Be My Light, which is composed of letters and writings of Mother Teresa concerning her feelings of spiritual darkness through the last decades of her life. The media blew this all out of proportion, making it sound like she doubted God. In reality, she is saying, "I believe, but I don't feel." Can any one of us say that we have never felt this? She felt that this was probably "sent" to her to experience suffering as did Christ. I am not sure that I agree with that and I probably will disagree with many things she writes. I am not totally anti-Catholic, but realistically, I am Protestant for a reason and so likely there will be things I cannot agree with. I'm looking forward to hearing what she wrote and I am intrigued by her honesty in recording these thoughts. I will be reading this along with my friend from church. She is a young Mom and the hope is that our children will play together and that somehow inbetween all that we will get to talk about the book. The first time will be tomorrow, Lord willing and so I am looking forward.

3 comments:

Lynette said...

My step-mother sings this sung almost everytime we see her.
Lynette

This World Is Not My Home
This world is not my home I'm just passing through
my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore
O Lord you know I have no friend like you
if Heaven's not my home then Lord what will I do?
the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore


They're all expecting me and that's one thing I know
my savior pardoned me and now I onward go
I know He'll take me through though I am weak and poor
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore
O Lord you know I have no friend like you
if Heaven's not my home then Lord what will I do?
the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore


Just up in Glory Land we'll live eternally
the Saints on every hand are shouting victory
their song of sweetest praise drifts back from Heaven's shore
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore
O Lord you know I have no friend like you
if Heaven's not my home then Lord what will I do?
the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore

Deborah said...

You are right, parallel lives, lol. I've been going through the same thought process lately. LV where I spent most of the first 33 years of my life has doubled in size since I left and now I get lost there. I truly don't recognize it. GB is the closest thing to home yet it changed so much after the hurricane. And Alabama is so different; we can barely understand the language, lol. I love our property and the people at church, but I do not feel home here either. Perhaps the Lord gives us such insight as a reminder that we are not home yet. But soon I think looking around.

Unknown said...

Hi Theresa and family
Many prayers and thoughts are with you and Tim and the kids

I hope you feel better real soon and have manytouches of the Lord in his ever presence all around you! I am praying for you as I write this.I can so relate to how you are feeling.Many times when I read your thoughts I feel like we have traveled many familiar roads.Your kind and dear ways remind me of my dear mom. In everything my mom did the Lord and her kids was what made her life so dear.
We moved in 1993 to the Southeast. Every time we go back to Upstate New York it looks so changed and not pleasing as it once did. But when I'm down and homesick I find myself wanting to be in a place that isn't no more. Fall time is especially hard as are all of the holidays. My parents gave us a wonderful childhood with the holidays being ever so special.My mom died on October 16th at the very young age of 55 to uterine and breast cancer. When I read your Blog today it ever so reminded me of what I am missing. My mom's love for the Lord and for life was ever so clear to everyone in good and in bad times. We moved south long before her death so when I am missing home I have a hard time disconnecting that she isn't there no more.She's in our real home...our heavenly home. Many times when I'm feeling down or in horrific pain I will read one of your posts or your blog and I instantly feel the same love that use to flow from my mom. Your kind words are always so comforting. It is so apparent it's because the same Holy Spirit that was ever so present from my mom's being is also abundant in your life. It's a calming and joyous feeling that no words can describe. Thank you for being who you are.
God Bless
Deb S
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