For the last two and a half weeks I have been living alone in a freshly-painted, tiny, noisy, old house. After being home for about a month I thought it would be difficult to go back to work on campus for forty hours a week (the whole getting up at 7 am thing is definitely not for me). I was sad to leave home at first because of my friends, but was looking forward to getting away from my family and lack of routine for a while. I expected to miss them all a lot, and I did, but I really enjoyed living there despite the lack of internet and cable. I was quite depressed yesterday when I had to leave my little house and its psychedelic carpeting. It seemed I had found a friend there- amid the creaky floorboards and running plumbing and grumbling refrigerator. Sitting next to my window at my shaky card table, I had a freedom and individuality that was precious to me. I was far from excited to head back home after coming to like this house so much.
But maybe it was less about the house and more about what took place inside it- inside of me- while staying there. Arriving there I found myself in a place where there was no one to influence me- no one to keep a game face up for- no one to please or accommodate. I thought I would suffocate myself there- live in a reality that didn't match everyone else's and not even know it. Instead, I found quiet...and solitude...and peace. I discovered a quiet place in my heart that I didn't know existed and I lived in that place.
And I found a side of God that hadn't yet been experienced. I went to work and came home to a Friend everyday, no matter my mood or my attitude toward Him or whether I had read His Word the night before. He spoke to me and I spoke to Him...a living conversation that I had never experienced before. I blossomed in His hands.
After a brutal year of struggle and pain and abuse, and a history of having terrible summers of a lack of productivity in many more ways than one, my stay in that house was a needed breath of fresh air. Maybe that's why I loved it- I could breathe there like no where else. I could learn and let go and rest. I haven't done that in a very long time, if ever.
It's understandable after having so much tangible joy there why the last place I would want to go was home. I live with a family who doesn't understand me, who talk at me inside of with me, who have treated me poorly without even knowing it. I suffocate at home in my little room- the one piece of the house that was mine until my mom started using it as her office. But I do long to be with Lis, to suffer through her pain with her like she didn't know how to suffer through my pain with me last summer.
I left my friendly house quite sad, and drove for the next two hours, the first half hour in silence despite The Classic Crime playing emotionally in the CD player. I remembered on the way there that I had sung my heart out to that CD on the way there to work on campus, but I was nonverbally disappointed to be on the road again, headed back to a place where I didn't want to be. I had thought maybe I would talk to Jesus on the way but I didn't really, I didn't really think anything, I just drove.
But then, when I ejected The Silver Cord album to insert Seattle Sessions, the radio came on and played Never Be The Same by Red. I listened to all of it, nearly crying because the reception for that station normally fizzled out after driving a half hour from home. I knew that God was speaking to me through this little miracle...that song is sort of mine and God's song, more or less. And when I put in Seattle Sessions, which my friend Mike had burned for me, I remembered that he had also put Deteriorate by Demor Hunter on the CD- a song I more than love. After listening to Red's song, I was ready to hear Him, and I did. Deteriorate has always been a song that I listen to when I am having faith-shaking trouble. But this time, I wasn't...and I sang every word with a giant smile on my face because...I can be at my absolute worst- absolute rock bottom- and He loves me. He just loves me. His love makes my pain so beautiful, and so worth it to get through.
I know at this point that I wouldn't change a thing about how terribly the year went, because it proved that I am human, and that He is God. I came dangerously close to leaving Him. But I need Him too much for that. Leaving Him just wouldn't help anything.
I drove home worshiping the God of the universe to Deteriorate by Demon Hunter (definitely not a worship song). What beauty there is in pain- in singing praise in our weakness. My joy returned as I drove further and further away from my little house, because I knew that the home I have searched for- that place where I can belong and feel free- isn't in a building but within Jesus Christ- my Savior and the love of my life. I can't say this is a new lesson, but a needed one. After the year I've had, I need to return again and again to that place inside me where He is- or better yet, just never leave the place where my spirit is unspeakably moved by His. He is my home.
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