Letting Go of Home

Some of you may remember months back I told of the State taking our farm under imminent domain. It has been rough on me. I'm not going to lie. I had all these plans to get on the other side and write a beautifully inspiring blog post. But you know what? I haven't gone through it like a glowing example of brave things. Or even with a joyful heart. 

It has kinda felt like I have gone numb. Like realities move me to and fro in a torrent of motion. And in all the jerking, water swallowing, and wave crashing... All I feel I can claim is that I survived. To the cancer patient this word makes sense to me, even has honor in it... But when you feel like you never reach live, you just flop from one survive to another. Then the word hurts. A lot. 

 

I have spent months packing. Making piles for thrift shop donations, and loading trailers full of trash. I have walked my mind down memory paths, and cried more than that. All I kept thinking was that I wanted to be brave. To go through this as a good example to my kids. To give testimony to a grateful heart and a humble yes. 

For all our good intentions, sometimes there is just life. This life on a busted earth. An earth we demand heavens standards on, but continuously get shocked by the hard true of its brokenness. If there is one thing I am learning it's that I don't write this story. And though I am beginning to accept God intends me to write, I will never be the author. In all this fallen, He is the only redeeming worth.

I kept walking the halls as my home got less homey... I would cry over memories of my baby girls first steps here... Of my young boy becoming a kind young man. Moments of dancing with my husband in the kitchen, spaghetti sauce bubbling onto stove... And I hurt under the weight of a tightening chest. Like the question "why" was taking my air. 

It's just a house right? Just land. 

My land. The land my husband fought to wrap up in a package and put a red bow on for me. Land to breath in, feel safe on. You know I was raised in a city? Yeah. The millions of Phoenix. The whole time I was there I ached to be free. Like there were bands around my lungs, I couldn't breath.  I wanted to be free of constant noise, and the endless cramming of too much in spaces. 

I had a girlfriend when I was 12 there. I remember the day she told me Phoenix was putting in another freeway, and that her house was gonna be bulldozed. I remember watching them wreck that neighborhood. Piles on piles of concrete, brick, and metal that had once been someone's memories. My friends memories. I remember driving on that freeway for the first time, and knowing the exact moment I was on top of my friends old house. And all I could think was, " I can't imagine how they all must feel."

I can't imagine...

My husband and I worked to get out of that city... Of all that cram to have more. We made it to a small town first, worked some more, and then jumped and bought this home, this land. To me it was a dream come true. I made it! And I never imagined the city habit of wanting new and better, of wanting more, would find me here. But it did. 

When my husband came home that day and said, " come with me, you need to sit down baby..."  I would not, in a million years, have thought he would say what he did. 

"... For a new freeway....."

So this is what this feels like. Someone's wanting more, having no thought for what they will take. Progress? Mmm.

I had a migraine for days. I felt like the city was stalking me. Like all my efforts were in vain.

It wasn't long after that my husband said he was relieved. It must have taken him such courage to say that to me. Relieved.  Relieved?

He began telling me how he was tortured at night wondering how he could keep us here. How he could keep from letting me down. See we had bought this house when overtime was a promise... But we since had had that stripped, and gone through two job changes, on top of my husband endlessly working his own business. He told me he was so tired of being scared, and that no matter how hard he worked, it always seemed to be in vain. That some other hardship always came up.

And that's how it was. Health problems, family problems, parenting hardships, financial ups and downs, and the strains it puts on a marriage. He was right. It's been a really hard six years. We had wonderful memories too... Shooting the best firework displays ever, with my precious inlaws... My babies birthday parties... My first horse...Amazing thunderstorms rolling in...and playing with our babies in open spaces... But there was always this feeling that no matter what we did, we couldn't overcome. Hard waves kept hitting, and my Nate kept working hard to sustain. So I get it. I get why he gave his all, had nothing to be ashamed of, and could just let go now. He gave me 7 wonderful years in a dream. I am proud of him.

I was up late, in my favorite spot in my house, that kitchen farm window. Looking out at my favorite tree silhouette... Jesus told me then. How we bought this dream out of His timing. The verse He told me has been playing through my mind these past few months as I process. 

"Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it."

                                 Psalm 127:1a

In. Vain.

I knew it was true. We felt all the years of its true. This was hard to swallow. 

I'm not gonna lie. I have wanted to run. I wanted to pack up my family, a few duffle bags and run. Stow up in a cabin somewhere, and find our peace again. Let go of all of the pain of all these years, and now of losing my home to a bulldozer. I am tired. I don't like who I see in the mirror. Pain rattling me to my bones. My health isn't good. My spine causes so much sorrow in our home, I can't find words. And I have troubled relationships in my family. Trouble that tangles your soul and leaves you undone. Changes in jobs, education, friendships, and safe places... You, whoever you are, I must tell you, I haven't gone through with grace. I have struggled, wept, gotten angry, lost my gratitude, and watched my hope fade. In all of it I have felt God detoxing my soul. Rattling me down to bone. Dry, cold, shaking bone. Like I am in this field, and I can't find home. I feel alone, forsaken, unloved, and mostly forgotten. This hasn't been my finest hour. I remember the day I was at my neurologist, two hours closer to Colorado... It was hard not to just keep going. My family, a duffle bag, and desperation...this seemed perfect to me. I cried when I turned the car to go back into all this. Back into migraines, relational trials, hard schedules, and hopelessness. Walking out the loss of a dream, and my safe place on top of it all.

Life is ugly sometimes. And we collapse under its weight. I haven't known how to stand up again. How to lead my kids through with thanksgiving, and show my husband my bravest smile. 

I may be undone, but I love Him. I love Jesus for all His being. So I wanted to at least end well for Him. Because amidst all of it, I did love my time here. With tree silhouettes and birds, my Lu's visits, and tea times with Tori. Pushing my babies in swings of sunlight, and holding my husbands hand on the back porch. 

So I gave Jesus a wall. A wall of thank you's. I left the sharpie pen out, and as I worked to pack up this life, as I cried inside these walls... About everything... I wrote. Wrote ways I felt Him here. In laughter, birthday parties, and her coming down my hall for coffee each morning she visited. Ways I had known his grace and tasted His goodness while living my dream. 

People whom my home had meant something too, joined in to create this place of praise. Telling me by text from faraway states what to write, or stopping by and writing themselves. My children writing too. I loved watching it fill. See it felt like with each thanksgiving I wrote, my soul could find a way through. Like maybe gratitude really is this lifeline.

And so it filled. Slowly and sweetly, like this sacrifice offering that really did cost me. And all I wanted was to prepare the wall like an alter. Because I may be a mess, but God is good and I wanted Him to know I still believed. I wanted Him to receive a gift in every word written here. Like incense from the giving up. And when the bulldozer pulls up that day...when the walls that I felt safe in...the place I nursed my baby girl...or taught my son how to forgive and love anyway in...when the bricks crumble and that dozer hits this wall... I want it to be the fire lit on an alter of praise. The knowing that Jesus will pick up every holy word, and receive it as love. In that moment He can read every word and know, I still choose Him when He takes away.

I did my final walk through the halls, the final words on that wall. And when I locked the door, I felt so undone. Like every issue, problem, and hardship was coming with me, but I was walking away from my safe place in it all. It felt wrong. And so, so hard. But those words echo in me still..." Unless He builds the house..."

 

My name means house of God.

Now He has to rebuild me. These months, I have been bulldozed. My ideas of what should be, have fallen. My hope has been lost, and I have been unraveled. Every ounce of me is laying in a rubble pile. My heart is broken, my body is weak and havoced with pain. I can't heal myself, and I can't write my story. See I am this house. And I am falling too. Because if I don't, I won't make it. I am meant to be rebuilt. So He will come and receive me, another offering. He will read each word written on the feeble walls of my heart. And I will be incense. He will tend to me, heal me, and breath life back into these bones. He will build this house and I will be whole. Only then will I stand. Only then will I be home.

Elizabeth. House of God.

Here is the beginning of welcome. Of His purposes in me. As a wife, a mama, a writer, and friend. The beginning of being built to be His kindness and welcome to others. The end of living in vain. God has a personal plan for this skin I live in. Rebuilt, renewed, and whole. How I ache for it. 

I probably won't drive down that country road for awhile. And it will hurt when I see an off ramp on top of the place I sat at a picnic table with my kids... But I will keep my eyes on the coming. For He is good, truly, truly good! And all this rubble isn't for naught.

So here I am. In city limits again. Learning to overcome panic attacks as I walk in a neighborhood and wonder why I am here...Learning to open my curtains and be ok with houses right beside me. To settle and make cozy new walls. Learning that home, and horizons... Freedoms spaces and the staying joy...is in Him. Him alone. The safe place no bulldozer may have, and where no heart is held in vain. 

Here I am. Learning that He is my mountain, horizon, open prairie, and saving grace.

He does give.

And He does take away.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord.