Home/Family

I was born in a small town in central Illinois. My dad is a pastor and he was at a small church in a rural community there. When I was 2 years old we moved to another small town in Central Indiana. I spent my early childhood there as my dad served a local congregation as their pastor. From there we moved to North East Ohio to another church where my dad was their pastor. I spent my most formative years there. Middle school, Junior high, High School and even graduated college from that same town. I felt called to the ministry so after college I moved to Massachusetts to pursue a masters from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. When I moved to New England my parents left Ohio and moved to serve a church in Louisiana. Around this time Dan and I got engaged. For the summer before we were married I lived in Louisiana and worked at my parents church. Dan and I got married. We both finished Seminary then moved from New England to Southern Illinois. Dan was the assistant pastor there and I was the children’s director. From there we moved to Central Minnesota to serve a church there. After 7 years we moved to Ohio where we are currently serving our congregation here. 

I’ll give you a minute to catch your breath and let the spinning in your head stop. 

That’s where I’ve lived over these past 37 years. We live in a military community now so I find folks regularly that understand moving. But really only those who grew up in a military family (or something else that caused you to move through your childhood)  and then became a military family as an adult understand what it feels like to have always moved- your whole life. 

We meet lots of people regularly. We seem to always be “getting to know” people better. So very regularly  get asked, “Where are you from?” I still stumble over this question. I don’t really have an answer. I am “from” nowhere. There is not one place that I have in my past that I claim as my “home”. For all of my life this has been the case. Everywhere we have lived I have “settled in”. I have made whatever current location we reside in a sort of a “home”. I have made friends, developed routines, found favorites but then we always left. We always started again somewhere else. There is no one place, or group of people, or church, or school, or scenery that has remained consistent in my day to day. 

And, I have always struggled with this. For as long as I can remember I have longed for a home- and all that “home” can mean. I have longed for roots, and history, for routine, and tradition, for stability, and life long friendships, for comfort and for a sort of routine and simplicity and predictability that can come from having history and deep roots in one place. I have found myself slightly jealous of those who will “stay” each time we have “left”. For the way their lives will carry on and their roots and friendships grow deeper while mine will be once more cut short and uprooted. 

The first half of my life and homelessness I had no real say in it. I was born into a pastor’s family. Into a family whose beginnings were rooted in surrender and submission to the will of God not rooted to one place. But at 17 I was confronted personally by the grace of God and transforming power of the Holy Spirit and I found myself in gratitude and joy surrendering my own life to His will. I said with all my heart, “I am yours. All of me.” I found myself telling God I would go anywhere- and do anything for his Kingdom. “Send me” was my honest surrender to my Savior. 

I walked forward always waiting to hear his direction and leading. Always seeking to discern “where” he would lead. His plans and direction have usually been different than I imagined but for each step and new season I have grown to accept his purposes and will even if it is not what I would have chosen. 

For a long time I thought that if I lived near family again I might feel the sense of “home” I was longing for. But so far God has continued to keep those doors closed and directed us elsewhere. I found a sense of home in many communities we lived in because of good friendships. And no more so than in our last congregation. And yet, God called us from that place too. The potential life long daily friendships and routine and all of the comfort those brought- ended.  Each new season seems to have more of the things that might bring me personal comfort stripped away. Over the years and the moves my roles have changed steadily and security I once felt in certain roles is now gone. 

I have been processing this over the past couple of years as these years have brought so much change and so so many comforts stripped away in my life I have sought understanding and sharpening through each trial. God has proven himself faithful to his word and promises. He has guided my gaze in each hard thing and I have had the priorities in my life change. Eternal purposes trumping the temporary. Kingdom goals taking precedent over my earthly goals. These verses have become a running theme in my life over the course the past few years, 

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory the far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unsee. For what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal.”

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

I picked up a book recently called, “Seasons of Waiting” by Betsy Childs Howard. There was one chapter called “Waiting for a Home.” This chapter was the reason I purchased the book. (though every chapter and topic spoke into my life and taught me) This quote from the book spoke directly into my life and heart, 

“Christians in every age have left their homes for the sake of spreading the Gospel. They can do this, trusting Jesus’s promise to restore what has been sacrificed: 

“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.” (Matthew 19:29) 

He promises to restore what has been sacrificed. 

Earlier in the chapter she writes, “Why are we homesick? Even though our longings for a home may focus on what is less than ideal about where we live or whom we live with deep down we are homesick because this is not our home. If you are a believer in Jesus, you are a citizen of heaven (Phil. 3:20). We live on earth, but “we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13)” 

I have thought lots about Abraham in the past couple of years. I have read the ending of Hebrews over and over because I know my life to be one of a sojourner and exile and find hope and perseverance in thinking on one who has lived this life before me in faith. 

So in these days, these years, I have had my gaze shifted upward, my hands have begun to release my grip on the comforts of this life and trust more fully and more faith-filled whatever plan God has for my days. 

And in the middle of these years of change, and transformation God has called our family to adoption and caring for orphans in this world. He has burdened us for the plight of the fatherless and driven us to advocate for their needs. We have see and held them in our arms and we cannot forget or stay silent. We will adopt until he says stop and then we will foster as we makes the way. Because our hearts have been set on things/ideals/values not found in this world- the sacrifice of earthly things to adopt was easier and more natural than it would have been 10 years ago. 

When we went to China to bring Noah home I bought a necklace. I wear it most days and it is a Chinese symbol that means, “Family”- at least that is what the sweet woman in the gift shop in Guangzhou told me! I wear it as a reminder and declaration that all children belong in families. 

Friday we were at the Dayton Convention Center for A World A’fair. This is a representation of MANY countries through information, food, and entertainment. We were there with all of our kids. Noah was riding on my back in a carrier as we stopped and talked with a few people at the China booth. They were sweet and wanting to hear about Noah and our adoption and travels to China. Then the man standing there saw my necklace and pointed to it and said, “Home.” I looked down and said, “Oh really? The woman I bought it from said it meant, “Family”. He casually said, “yes, it means both.” 

It was chaotic in the room and we moved on to other country booths and then went into the stage area to watch some of the dancing. I had Noah sitting on my lap. He was cheering, dancing and clapping with each new performer when all of the sudden I was hit with an overwhelming wave of emotion. The Chinese man’s words suddenly ringing in my ears, “It means family and home.” 

In physical adoption we see echoes and glimpses of what it means to be spiritually adopted through faith in Jesus christ. A good father points to our heavenly father. Family points to the family and children of God. We are grafted in and called God’s sons and daughters. 

And as I sat there in that loud and crowded room it hit me, an orphan find a home in adoption. They find rest, comfort, security, routine, stability and belonging. 

And how fitting that the Chinese symbol I am wearing around my neck means BOTH home and family. Because they are in many ways synonymous. They are so closely related they can be the same symbol. 

All of my personal homesickness points to the reality that I am not yet home. It points me to the eternal truth of home to come. 

God uses physical adoption to bring to light spiritual realities. I pray he would take not my child’s lack of a “home” but his finding a home and use the positive examples to point his heart to an even greater reality waiting for him eternally. 

家 (jiā) means family, home, or house in Chinese