A Grateful Chorus, well, Medley

This world is not my home / I'm just a passing through  

Grandpa M with his Sinatra hat. Ain't he cute?

In the past three weeks, Isaac's studies have intensified. So has my social calendar. I have visited my 82-year-old grandmother in Wichita, stayed with my 94-year-old grandfather and his sweet wife in Albuquerque, had coffee with my best friend from elementary school, gone to the memorial service of a family friend who loved Jesus and been at the hospital for the birth of a dear friend's firstborn. My heart is full. 

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue

My mom & her mother watching the wonders of donut-making. Love. It.

This past summer we found boxes of my old pictures and journals at my grandmother's house. Most of them are still sitting in those boxes, despite the fact that multiple visitors have commented about the empty frames hung on our apartment walls. "We just needed something on the wall." A stack of weathered journals beside our bed calls nightly.

The angels beckon me from heaven's open door

 I "ran into" a former BFA student on facebook today, and we swapped small-world posts and comments. Barbie on her timeline brought back memories of one of my favorite single-girl blog entries: The Jewish Nation and Me: Seder Barbie. Five years ago, in my second year of overseas assignment, I was addressing issues similar to those I find myself wrestling with in this season, while He remains the same.

And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

Judi, my childhood best friend. We once pretended she was deaf
just so we could pull one over on our waiter. When he asked what we
were having, she signed to me, & I acted like I knew what she wanted.
She'd told me earlier. It was awesome.

Home. Isaac and I have been talking this week about the definition of home. Our conversation becomes a list of ingredients for a favorite stew: each location or house in which we have lived savored and, any of which left out, would alter the recipe.

We agreed that both the home in which our parents live and our current location as a couple come closest to being called home. It's a bittersweet admission. 

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. ~ Hebrews 11:8-10

Happy Thanksgiving. May we live obediently, lovingly in this land while we gratefully look forward to the next city.