Fear Not

This world is not our home. As Christians, this world is not our home, something better awaits us. That, is comforting, that the best is yet to come. But I also feel a sense of, I guess abandonment as a youth ministry course would call it. Hesston, was not my home, the London Mennonite Center that I stayed at this weekend was not my home, Bradford is not my home, the place I was raised is no longer my home, and where I will go to next, will not be my home. When will I ever come HOME? I feel this strong sense of longing, for a place to call home. Not a place with matching furniture and walls and dishes. Not even necessarily a place where I sleep and eat. But a place that I can feel as if it truly is home, and not know that I will be leaving, or when.

Cliched phrases are rushing through my head as I write this, such as, "Home is where the heart is," "Home is where there is love." But my heart does not stay put. It flutters it's wings and hovers, daily. My heart is in music, in writing. My heart is in serving. I take it with me to school, and give children my heart as I try to teach them the all-too-confusing phonetics of the English language. I take my heart with me to choir and laugh and sing and praise God with the other women there. I take my heart with me when I see or talk to new friends we have met here in Bradford. There are times when I want to keep my heart with me for whatever I am doing here, but it won't stay. It hops the next ocean-liner and then plays leap-frog on cars and trucks all the way to Nebraska, and Kansas, and California, South Dakota and New York. Sometimes it hops a plane to Paraguay. So, I don't really know that home is where the heart is. Maybe it is. Maybe I have a jumping heart, so full, it can't spread love fast enough. Maybe God intends for my home to jump with my heart throughout my life. I want so badly to settle, on a farm in Kansas and have the same job for 30 odd years.

But maybe God is preparing me for something far different. Maybe He has a life planned for me that I'll have 10 different homes and 12 different jobs. It feels as if my strength is already waning, at the young age of 20. "I can't lead a life of moving, constantly jumping from place to place!" my soul screams. But even as I fear and doubt, I hear the still small voice of God say, "Fear not, I will be with you my child. Even as I am with you now, I will be with you." "Okay," my soul whispers back, "Ok. But only if you will go with me." "Fear not."