Home for Christmas

I have made a commitment to myself and to my God to truly attempt to write with some consistency ~ perhaps Tuesdays I think, yes, Tuesdays will work nicely I believe.  So, one week passes and I successfully write on a Tuesday, yes, Tuesdays, nice indeed.  The next week comes and I find another Tuesday ~

and this Tuesday?  Not so nice indeed!  I managed one week, only one week, how is that possible?  So, I sit at my computer and stare at a blank screen and listen to thoughts that make a soul weep and I say, "This Tuesday, this is not your day."  But, my commitment?  A bad day, a bad week, are grounds to break commitments?  That is surely not a lesson I would teach to my children, so why do I teach it to me?

God quietly whispers, reminds, He does not expect perfection, He expects truth and obedience, so I type the first word and submit to One that is far greater and not the slightest bit flustered by my day or my week.

Why the bad week? Nothing of any real consequence ~ multiple difficult conversations with hurting children (always entirely exhausting and completely necessary, and Jesus always sustains), 6 dentist appointments, 2 doctor appointments, 1 audio appointment (in Charleston no less), 1 huge Christmas party to plan (500 children from our community attending and we plan and pray and then pray some more), 1 meeting with our social worker, countless school hours and papers to grade, and 168 plates to fill this week (yes, I did the math).  This all makes for one tired Mama, especially when she loses sight of the One Who always supplies.

But, exhaustion or not, I will try to write but with a little cheating involved ~ I fished through old drafts of posts not completed and there it is ~ a strange post about Christmas and ramblings of sojourners but I read with a tear in my eye and it soothes my soul.  So, tonight I read and write and will eventually hit submit ~ for me ~ He knew I would need these words that He gave before and in them I would find rest.  Maybe you need the words of rest too, maybe not, either way, God is good, all the time.

Here it is, ramblings of Christmas ~
 
Jesus ~ entirely unchanging, never exhausted or rattled, never anxious or angst filled but ALWAYS readily available with wide open arms.  Jesus ~ so unlike me.

An unchanging God is a foreign notion to us, we who are so prone to change in the blink of an eye, to be filled with stress and tension over the most inconsequential, trivial matters.  We are so dumbfounded by the One who is unchangeable ~

Malachi 3:6 - "For I am the Lord, I do not change . . ."

Hebrews 13:8 - "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."

James 1:17 - "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning."

How can we be so deeply loved by the One who is so unlike us?  Is this why we continually come to God with closed fists rather then flat, open palms, ready to receive all that He desires to give?  Because we do not understand how entirely different He is from us?

We do not trust because we do not know, He is wholly unlike us, for the image was broken in the fall.

We are sojourners, we search for this Mysterious One and we often do not know what we were search for, we simply sojourn on ...

And when found, He, that was so unknown somehow feels familiar, as if I have always known this One.

It is as if I have come home for Christmas after weary years away.  And my friends and family await and I have voyaged so long and when I arrive home the familiarity, the known, floods my soul.  And I am home but yet this home I have never seen before ~ this is not the family room of my memories, yet a pair of perfectly fitted slippers await me beside the reading chair.  And my eyes descry an unknown bed in an unfamiliar room and yet somehow the pillow is creased with perfection to fit my head for ... every hair on my head is known ... and I wonder how can it all be?  A home I have not known, never beheld before is meticulously prepared for me as if I have lived here for all of eternity.


And I have come home to my true home; a new home but a new home that slides on like a well-worn pair of running shoes that have traveled miles upon miles with me.

This is God; every time.  A continual breath of fresh air that shocks the lungs to life with remembrance of something always known.

And I journey home, but can I find a home in this moment that I am trekking home?  On this weary, worn path; can I find a place to rest my head on a perfectly creased pillow intended just for my hairs?  Is it possible to travel and somehow abide, simultaneously?

Can the weary walk in rest?

The Christ follower come home before they reach the final, eternal home?

I wonder, I pray, I am not sure this wearisome wanderer can continue on until my final day.

He must have an interim home, for He had known from the beginning that we, or maybe just me, would need to lay the head down, to slip achy feet up to rest.

I sense it, I feel it, my spirit comes home for a moment ~ in the moment that I set my eyes aright and I abide.  I choose to abide and lay my head down and rest on the breast of He who is waiting.  (Did not the Disciple whom Jesus loved do just this?)  But then another choice, and I set my eyes all askew and I hear words that were not His and allow emotions to reign that are not His fruit.  And I choose to focus on their behavior rather then His promises, the finances rather then His provisions.  And in that instant of a choice made I pick my head up and turn away from my home, away from my eternal home.

But, there is hope, I hear Him calling louder, clearer and continually, He is calling me home.  Come home, your rest is waiting.

Strange how abiding and coming are so often one in the same.

We set about coming and realize He is already there so we see it is simply just abiding we need; opening our eyes to that which is all around us; His goodness.

His goodness ~
                    heard in the loud laughter of the rambling six ...  

                    in the rising sun (and it does rise, every morning, just as He promised) and the crescent moon ...

Hosea 6:3
"...As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."

                    the tides that flow according to His time ...
                    the breaking of bread and giving of ourselves in thanks to the hand that provides ...
                    in the butterfly and the bird that travel paths He has marked ...
                    in His holy, written script ...
                   And countless more.

I see and I come home and I make choices that allow me to abide and stay home while I travel to my eternal home.

So, we race on and we race in His rest.