Home is Where the Heart is

I was doing laundry the other night, walking back and forth from the basement in pajamas, no makeup, hair undone. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrors on the elevator walls and was shocked at the look on my own face. It was pained. Strained.

I thought about it as I walked back into my apartment and as I unlocked the door and stepped in, I felt a twinge in my stomach, like I didn't recognize my surroundings. It all came together as I realized I was beginning to no longer feel at home in my own home.

There is an anxiety that exists in the places I have called home. As if I am always waiting to get to the next step, the next place, so I can be at home there. Everything I have built an image of home on, no longer exists anywhere I can rest my head. Community, peace, comfort, stability, the attributes I seek the most have escaped me.

Amidst this, I have found myself in some of the deepest heartache I have ever faced. For weeks I have been swimming in it, refusing to let it pull me down. Today, I could no longer fight. A knife sliced through my heart, breaking it anew. Drowning all day, never have I faced a moment of questing who and what I am so deeply. A divorce could not even shatter me the way I have been broken down in these last few months. I never thought it was possible, but it was.

So as I do when I don't know what to do, I went to the gym. Pain the body to match the soul. On the way back, I turned on worship music. I have been avoiding it lately. It has seemed to be source of failure. All of the work He seemed to have done on my heart in the recent years, and it seems I am no different. What did I do wrong? It's too much to bear burdens and be perfect, so another failure is cast onto the growing mountain.

But still, why not?

So I turned it on, and the first song that came on was titled "Where I belong." It took the full six minutes of the song for it to sink in. I had forgotten everything He had taught me.

It's not about running after Him, it's about turning around. It's not about trying to please Him, it's about assuming He is already happy. At the darkest moment, when I wonder why those I have reached out to have shunned and rejected me, it's about believing that doesn't reflect Him. I have judged God by men and convinced myself if I am unworthy to others, I am unworthy to Him, and my deepest pain has come from that break. I did leave home, I left Him. I trusted Him in the good and He taught me then, but now I have to trust His love is there when loneliness threatens to pull me under. I have to believe that love I encountered is just as real now as when I was on top of the world.

Sometimes the messages are so powerful. They come from a best friend, a husband, a brother... those that you think you are safe with for a moment. The ultimate rejection feels like the ultimate truth and for some reason those messages are so much easier, so much more powerful, so much more frequent than those of the consistent, true, invaluable love of a Savior.

Ironically, the most powerful part of the worship song is when it repeats a phrase from Song of Solomon: "I am my Beloveds and He is mine, so come into Your garden and take delight in me."

Who is saying it to whom? Can I invite Him in to delight in a garden that so many have passed by? Would He delight in me? Will he see beauty when others have seen the overgrowth, the weeds and deemed it ugly and walked away for more fragrant, well-maintained and manicured gardens?

I can only pray that this is part of His path and journey. That this is a time of pain meant for growth. I pray this has a purpose. That I find myself in Him and nothing else, that I learn that I can never earn the love I seek so whole-heartedly. Maybe this is part of the path of letting go of control and value based on action and creating my own outcomes.

Oh sweet Jesus, delight in me. Let me be something You love and cherish just for what I am in this moment, wounded, confused, hurting, jealous, angry, bitter, failing... please find value in me. Find something good, find something worthy in me... and let me see it too. Don't pass my garden on Your way to someone else's. I pray something catches Your eye and You find my hidden treasure I have yet too see. Only You can heal these wounds. I am lost without You. Bring me home....