There's No Place Like Home... There's No Place Like Home...

Let me preface this by saying that this post is a work in progress....I don't have a clear grasp of it except for an awareness of concepts, moments and experiences that feel linked together, somehow, without an obvious (to me) path or progression.  But, life is like that... and I muddle through and share when I feel led...

It started in church - sort of - as my pastor was talking about Jacob FINALLY getting to Bethel (Genesis 35).... or perhaps it started last night, as my daughter and I assembled her new bed.... or perhaps it was while I was "on retreat".... or headed that way...

Clearly, I don't have a definitive "starting point"... but it really doesn't matter.  It WOULD satisfy my logical, linear-thinking brain if we moved from point A to point B sequentially, and not follow the loopsy whimsical path that it seems we sometimes do.  But I know it will all "work together for good" one way or another.

So, there I stand - on the box - interpreting the sermon.  (Which means, I can relay to you the general concepts of the message and the long list of words for which I forgot the signs)  The concept that stuck with me was of these "Bethel experiences" the Jacob had experienced.  Those moments, when undeniably, God had been there with him.

We were asked to remember ours - and to consider those places where God is calling us to be. (and, surrender, obey and GO... without the delay modeled to us by Jacob)

All afternoon, as I shifted furniture around, washed clothes, and sorted through boxes of "stuff"my daughter had cleared out of her room, my mind shifted from my retreat to The Wizard of Oz.

I remember - VERY clearly - the evening God met me and called me to retreat with Him.... and yet, as I drove the miles into the woods, He reminded me that I didn't need to "go away" to do so.  I returned home with a new sense of purpose.... that quickly got lost in the shuffle of everyday life.

And, as I begin the six week stretch that is typically the busiest of the year for me, I had a moment to sit.  Quietly.  With Him and with my calendar, thinking...

"There's no place like home.  There's no place like home...."