Mommy Blog

Displaced

in Thoughtful Thursdays on March 10, 2022

2021 was an interesting year for a number of reasons. I think people all across the globe will attest to that statement.

But besides navigating through multiple historical events (worldwide pandemic, a completely and solidly FROZEN Texas, need I go on?), I waded through some major life changes.

For starters, my husband and I sold our home of TWENTY YEARS. The house we raised our babies in. The house we poured blood, sweat, tears, and money into. The house we welcomed friends from every corner of the earth into, sheltered family, and even baptized babies in. We made the monumental decision to move.

We packed up twenty years of memories and said goodbye.

We became empty-nesters; which was what prompted the move in the first place. Even though our own children had moved out, Jeff and I realized that we’d outgrown the house that had stood as the family homestead.

We started looking down the road, and into the future.

So, we opted to buy some land, and build our “forever” home…a place where our kids could come back to, and bring their own families with them.

In the meantime, Jeff, the dogs, and I have been renting a little house down the road. It has been an experience. We have essentially been camping for the last seven months. We brought a handful of clothes, the bare minimum of kitchen equipment, and a scant amount of other things I thought I couldn’t live without while our new house was being built.

Everything else we put into storage.

I brought NONE of my Christmas decorations with me. I do not have my materials from my office, so working on new projects without my things has been a challenge. I am constantly worried about the carpet, the walls, the backyard (we DO have dogs), and a plethora of other things that I am hyper-sensitive to, simply because this isn’t my house.

I must admit, the holidays were rough. Not only am I still recovering from a major operation on my head, I could not host Thanksgiving OR Christmas! The two dinners that I look forward to cooking every year.

I felt displaced.

Correction: I feel displaced.

I’d like to think my feelings of displacement and restlessness will dissipate once we are settled into the new house, but if I’m completely honest, they won’t.

Why?

The answer is simple: It doesn’t matter where we put down our roots, or how deep those roots grow, this is not my home…not my REAL home. This place, this life, it’s all temporary. As the old Gospel song says, “Heaven is my home.”

The apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians that “our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 3:20)

If we get too caught up with the material things this world has to offer, we lose sight of the fact that we are only travelers passing through. Of course, God has provided family, friends, shelter, and countless other things for us to enjoy on our journey. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter what type of house we build, how many Christmas trees we put in those houses, or what other tangible items we cling to—nothing here is truly going to be our “forever” anything. On day, it will all pass away.

It’s no wonder that all of us, at one time or another, feel displaced. We should. We should all long to be with the One who has created and called us to higher purposes.

Several years ago, I saw a trio of rings that were incredibly thin bands of gold, platinum, and rose gold. They were an extravagant request to say the least. After months of hinting around and dragging poor Jeff into that jewelry store every time we were near it and only receiving resounding and solid “NOs” from him, I gave up.

Then, on Christmas morning, I opened three small ring boxes.

While the rings themselves were enough to make me cry, it was the extra miles my husband went to in order to ensure the memories we were building stayed solidified in my mind and in my heart. Delicately and painstakingly, he had the jeweler engrave latitude and longitude coordinates on the inside of each band.

The first was the location we met.

The second was the location of the beach we were married on.

And the third was the location of the home we raised our family in.

Those rings were given to me YEARS before we even THOUGHT about moving. They were precious to me then, and are even more precious to me now.

So let me ask you: Are you feeling displaced? Where is your home? Your true home?

I’ll leave you with this: I once heard someone say, “Home is not one location, but rather a place where the heart is fixed.”

Where is your heart fixed? I hope it’s on Jesus, because His heart is fixed on you.