The Move

August, 2005: As I lay on the pull-out couch of the freshly-inhabited condominium with my older sister, Kristyn, my mind quietly avoided reality.  The heaviness of my distracted thoughts were suddenly broken by another one of Kristyn's doomsday maxims.  

"I was just thinking about going back.  Then I realized... I'll never be home again."  

The words broke my heart as easily as would a sledgehammer; tears slipped from my drooping eyes to my pillow, unnoticed in the darkness.  Yet, it was true; we would never go back home.  Although "home" at the time was loosely defined by a house on Shelbyville Road (yes, I've been notified of the irony) in the sprawling cornfields of Indianapolis, new entries have been added with time.  At this point, places like Indianapolis, San Jose and Balfate, have been added, erased, and revised.  The new definition:

home [hohm] - John 17:16; Not of this world, even as Jesus was not of it.

In August of 2005, my family packed up and moved to the mission field.  A year of language school was all it took for Costa Rica to steal my fickle heart, seeming even more real and exciting than Indiana ever had.  Surrounded by mountains, Spanish, and Christians, it seemed like there could be nothing more to life.  However, my theory proved wrong when, in August of the following year, our family uprooted itself once again, this time bound for the nothing-country of Honduras.  After all that Costa Rica had done for me, how could I leave it behind and replace it with a nation I had hardly even heard of?  It seemed treacherous.  Of course, God softened my heart despite my futile protests.  It eventually dawned on me that Honduras held the key to my affections.  Three years provided ample time for the place to render me helpless to its beauty.  Ample time, but limited.  When the time came to move again, it seemed simply too much.  Although the other moves had been painful, to say the least, I couldn't fathom giving up Honduras.  It was agonizing.  But it happened.  

I now find myself where this all began, in the condo that stole my "home" away.  Although I didn't realize it four years ago, this condo did far more than push away my house on Shelbyville Road; it pushed me closer to my home, to the Father and his grace, to the Son and brother-love, to the Spirit and his guidance.