Threshold

Two years.   730 days.  104 weeks.  A blink.

Time is such a relentless thing.  The invisible observer in the background of our days.  Our weeks.  Our years.

I never knew to dream North Carolina for myself a second time.  I’m so thankful that God dreams bigger dreams for us than we even know to dream for ourselves.

Our first move to NC was challenging.  Time was younger, and so were we.  The moving company that we hired to move our things from Florida to Charlotte, somehow, caught on fire while in route with our belongings.    A new state, a new job, a young couple with a baby boy–nothing to wear, no bed for that sweet boy to lay his head, no dish from which to eat.

Stuff is just stuff, and God is good, and we survived.  The following year, though, we left North Carolina not feeling too impressed with the time that we’d spent there.

The One Who is even more faithful than time…He held our dreams in His heart until we were ready for them.  He dreamed them, He kept them, and He brought them to pass.  Our dreams.  Dreams that we didn’t even know that we had.

Who knew that we’d eventually make our way back to North Carolina?  Who knew that we’d, one day, consider it our ‘Promised Land’?  The Keeper of time.  He knew.

Exactly four years ago, I walked into my kitchen in Kentucky, and turned the calendar page.  October 2008.  We’d moved a lot.  Many years of “wandering”.   I believe that those years were part of God’s plan for our life.  But, my longing was to feel at home.  To be at home, somewhere.  We’d had happy times; there was not an absence of joy…but my heart craved home.

That October day in 2008, we had a house for sale in one state, while living in another state; my life was anything but settled, and wouldn’t be for quite some time.   Tired and drained, I innocently turned the page to expose another month on the calendar; more time that wouldn’t cooperate with the longing of my heart.  And there, in that modest kitchen, God met me.

The words that I read on that fresh calendar page read: “Lord, You have been our home since the beginning.” Psalm 90:1.

I never needed anything else.  My security, comfort and contentment was in my Home.  Always Him.   The Home that my heart craved.  My Canaan.  From the beginning.

I love His gentleness.  He understood the deep desire of my heart.  He didn’t judge me for it.   He agreed with it, even.   And softly, through the casual turning of a page, He whispered: “Psst, I know.  It matters to Me.  I’ve got this.  But, hey, by the way, — what you long for, you already have.  You’ve had it since the beginning.  I am your Home.”

(I can’t help but remember that in Exodus, God refers to Himself as “I AM”.  Hmmm.  “I AM your Home.”  How complex, yet, how very elementary.  He is my all in all.)

It’s been four years since that calendar hung on my kitchen wall.  A lot has happened between then and now.  We’ve been in our NC home for two years now.  730 days?  Sure does feel like a blink.

I’m still amazed at the way that God led time by the hand, commanding it every second of every day of every year ~ So, so generously, bringing us to this earthly place that we call home.

I’m grateful, no doubt. Insanely grateful. But, I’m especially thankful for the times in between. The time that He used to teach me that Home really is where the heart is. He is my heart. He is my Home. Since the beginning…even when I didn’t know it.

“……We went through fire and water, but You brought us to a place of abundance.”  Psalm 66:12

(Originally written in 2010)