Home, Schmome!

I played softball when I was a kid. I played second base, and we had such a fun team, The Sluggers. We all went to school together and loved practices and the game. When I would go up to hit, the pitcher would throw the ball and I would swing and hit and sometime swing and miss. There was nothing that I did not like about the game. We were city champs in Plano many years ago! Sluggers were the best

Fast forward many years and I have a son who decides he wants to play baseball. He was great at pitching and fielding but once he stepped into the batter’s box it became a struggle for him. His fear of getting hit by the ball was so intense that it crippled him at the plate. The pitcher would wind up and he would almost step out of the box before the ball was released. He quit because he hated batting so bad that it became too much trouble. Even the coached might have blown many caskets yelling at him to stay in the box. Really it was a win for everyone.

Season 4 of the Noisy Narrative Podcast is up today! Take a listen here.

We can all relate to seasons where we had things come up that we wanted to step out of the box to avoid contact but stay in the game for other parts. As the Minister to Women here at Frisco First, I have been thinking about this post for a while. Maybe a month or so. I might have even wanted to give this date to someone else, but I said Yes to the Lord.

What I am referring to is this post.

I knew in my core I needed to write this post.

For the last two weeks I have asked the Lord for words from Him to say this well.

I love my home.

I love my couch.

I love my island.

I love my fireplace and mantel.

I love my island and the barstools that go with it.

I love the rockers on my front porch.

I even love my doors.

I currently have guilt for the love that I have for the above-mentioned items.

I have been told my whole life to not love “things”. As believers we are reminded that this is temporary, this is not our home. Don’t love things, don’t have idols, rid your life of things from the world. 1 John 2 says, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”

We lost our first home to foreclosure, and I remember Papa saying, “Christy it is just a house” and I believed him. But I wish someone would have said it was okay to mourn the loss of something that is a “thing” or of the “world.”

I am typically one that gets rid of things, I am brutal with memorabilia. I am so thankful for the best preschool in town, Sonshine Academy, they give you a book of memories at the end of the year which means I don’t have to keep all the extra crap that comes home each week. No offense kids but a mom can handle so many scribbles and yes, it is all pretty and I will store it away in my mind and heart but the trashman needs some love too.

We live in a small home, and I love it. We don’t accumulate things. We don’t have the space too and I good with it. I don’t keep toys in boxes for my future grandkids, if clothes come in clothes must go out. If you have not worn it in a year, it is gone.

Again, family jokes if they can’t find something to look in trash can or the back of the car where I might have a donation bag.

Here is another side of me. I love the rituals and the family habits that we have at our home. Since the kids were little, I would make dinner and then I would lock them in the backyard with a popsicle while I cleaned up. They would play in the sandbox or go down the slide or do chalk but they knew after dinner we went outside. As they are now 18, 16, 15 and 10 their bodies still do that same thing. They might go to the backyard or the front. I am clearly aware that they also are dodging cleanup duty, but I am okay with that also if they are making memories together.

Something else I love is the chirping crickets in the tree in the summer. I love to sit in the backyard and listen to them in the trees. When it rains, we open the windows and doors and can feel the breeze (currently hot) and hear the rain. I love hearing the football games on a Thursday and Friday night playing at the stadium up the street. I love that our neighbors come over and we sit on the porch and talk at any given point. I love that one of my neighbors walks to get his mail at the same time every single day and we say our daily hellos and check ins.

I love the comfort and the practices that my family has acquired, gained, continues to do. We are a family of habits and traditions.

Well, our habits, practices and rituals got displaced this summer when we had a fire in our house and are still uprooted. At first it was okay because we stayed with my brother who is the life of the party and that was great for the kids. Then we moved into a VRBO fully furnished and paid by insurance and it is nice. It has AC and beds it is comfortable. So, I am not complaining I am sharing my heart with you when I say, I have had to learn and educate myself on how to process this. There was a word that came coming up in my head a lot for the first couple of weeks of being in this house. Sojourner. Yes, it is a Hebrew word used a lot in the bible. This Hebrew term and its translation convey the basic idea that a person (or group) is residing, either temporarily or permanently, in a community and place that is not primarily their own and is dependent on the “good-will” of that community for their continued existence. Besides “sojourner” there are several other translations by scholars that have tried to capture the meaning of the Hebrew term, including “resident alien,” “immigrant,” “foreign resident,” “client,” “foreigner,” and “stranger.”

This was us. We were in a new neighborhood, new people, nothing was the same, nothing was known, we were not a native to our land.

People ask how we are doing and there was a stint of a couple of weeks where I wanted to hide, I was mad, mad and did not want to answer because my mental state was bad. I felt like I could cry. I had one sweet friend call and say, “Kid, how are you doing?” I was like I am okay. It was all so overwhelming. Like a wave of emotions, wave of question, waves of “what just happened” or “is this really happening?” We have a senior who is graduating and this his last year at home and then off to college. He won’t get to enjoy a full year at his home…this is the things that make me mad and sad

There is this underlining tone or theme that runs through the bible about being a sojourner, not making this your home, being a resident alien, being a foreigner. So many of the authors in the bible touch on this. God does not want us to get sucked into the way of the world, the evil, the paganism, the idolatry, their way of doing things that are unnatural and condoning it. In Hebrews we are reminded that “For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come. Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to his name. (Hebrews 13:14-15).

As I came out of my funk, mostly because the insurance approved things and the contractor started making progress on our home, I really started realizing how much I get wrapped up in this world. I try hard not too but I can see how some people do the clothing challenge or purge their house to see what they could live on. As you are reading this and thinking I could never do that, I would kindly lean into your personal space and whisper then maybe you should. It has been healthy for our family to experience this trauma and this tragedy because it has allowed for us to rid ourselves of our things, displace a bit to make sure realize how much we long for our home. We long for our friends and neighbors, our trees, our trampoline, my ability to lock to the kids out after dinner.

I also learned it was okay that I loved all my items at the beginning of the post because those items provide moments and memories. They provide us times together in community with each other and friends. They provide emotional rest and rejuvenation. They don’t go against what God wants for our family, we teach, we educate, we love each other well here. We worship God and thank him for all that he has given. We realize it even more now that everything we have comes from God.

When you pull out of your house today, look at your home and thank the Lord for all the memories, meals, moments you have had there. We started do that over our rental.

We hope you enjoy this season with all new blog posts and podcasts. It is going to be amazing, and we are excited for the uplifting and encouraging content we are putting out there. Please know we want to hear from you. If you have a story you want to share with us, please email me or text me. We are called to encourage each other with our testimonies. Frisco First Women’s Ministry is here to walk, equip, love, laugh and spur one another to the glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.