No Place Like Home

Right before I left for the women's retreat this past weekend, my 5 year old said to me, "It's just not home without you, Mama!"    And of course my heart melted.       It was the sweetest thing I could of ever heard.  But I still was excited about getting away for a couple days.   

On the retreat we talked a lot about how our identity is in Christ.   And how, knowing Him is knowing home.    We listened to examples of the type of home that Christ longs for us to have in Him.   Like the sweetness of a newborn baby sleeping on their mother's chest, totally at peace and secure.     We talked about how knowing the Holy Spirit allows us to live out of the fruits of the Spirit.  We also talked about how our "home" - our identity- is constantly attacked.  And instead of living out of the Spirit, we doubt how secure we are in Christ.    We listen to our insecurities, responsibilities, and anxieties about life, and the safe, restful home that we have in our Heavenly Father, becomes a distant vapor that we barely can see.    Much less feel.

I think something that I have been seeing for a while now, is that if I want to truly know that place of rest in my Father's arms, I'm going to have to fight for it.    It won't just happen to me.   I'm going to have to de-clutter my life enough to be able to make room for sitting at His feet.    To make space for Him entering in.    I'm not just going to get it one day.    I'm not going to wake up, and just start feeling that "at home" type of feeling in my spirit that I long to have.

I used to look at believers that were older and wiser than me, and think, "They've really got it.  They really know the freedom in Christ that I am longing for."    The next thing that I would think is, "I wonder when I'll really have that."   The funny thing, is that I've had "it" all along.  The "it" is the One who already lives within me.   He is my home, and He is always with me.  I'm just so busy doing for Him all the time, that I'm not still enough to see and hear Him.  So often I get caught in the clutter of life, and don't even realize that I'm already home.    I'm ready to come home.    To clear away the stuff of life, and just be with my Father.