Homesick

Homesick - MercyMe

When I was a sophomore, the house that I grew up in was sold to Lowe's who promptly tore it down and put in a parking lot. This all passed quickly through the eyes of a teenager, busy with Young Folks and a boyfriend, acting like she didn't care. I remember standing up the street and watching the bulldozers knock down the schoolhouse that my mom and dad bought for cheap and lovingly restored into a home. The bricks tumbled down, the roof caved in, the windows shattered, and the neighbors all scattered.

My parents built a barn with an apartment on the end where we lived while the new house was being built. I spent the rest of my sophomore year and part of my junior year in the barn. Then we moved into the new house. I was even busier with yearbook, YF's, entire weekends spent in southern Ohio, after school jobs, and school. The house was awesome, and mom and dad spent many hours trimming and painting, but I was nowhere around. The end of my senior year came and went and quickly moved into fall when I got married and moved eight hours away.

When I moved to Virginia, and even still to this day, I get the question, "Do you get homesick?" The answer is Yes. But the home that I grew up in, the one that holds all of my childhood memories, the house that I learned about life in, and the rooms that still come back to me when I dream, is gone. I get homesick for a house that only lives in my happiest memories. When I would go to mom and dad's to visit, I didn't even know where she kept her measuring cups in the new house. Or the plates I should use to set the table. And I would feel something in the pit of my stomach. It felt like the loss of something that I loved so much but yet took for granted.

And now I feel the same way again.

I'm homesick.

Homesick for something that will never be the same again. Homesick for something that our parents poured their love and energy into that can quickly be ripped apart. Homesick for my friends that are all scattered in different areas and stages of life.

But, here's the thing.

One house got torn down.
But a new one was built.

Now there is room for more people and more holidays and more birthday parties. My parents are happy in their house in the country with baby ducks being hatched on the pond. My friends have their own houses and are doing whatever it takes to follow Christ. I have my own house now. I am a parent building memories and teaching my children about Jesus. Everything is okay.

And everything is going to be okay.
He's given us a promise.
Luke 18:29-30