Home.

Limbo. So it seems that we meet yet again. This is my least favorite place. I find that I belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Even the cliche "home is where the heart is" does me no good. My own heart  has taken up residency everywhere and nowhere. I long to be back at Lipscomb, journeying on toward my future goal of becoming a physician's assistant, and rekindling all the wonderful friendships that I made over the past year. And maybe just maybe, I'm looking forward to seeing my sweet boyfriend more than just once a month. I'm excited to be back with my roommate (she is a saint to say the least) and  share a room with someone other than a 6 year old insistent upon sleeping in my bed, horizontally. While my heart yearns to be walking the perfectly manicured Lipscomb campus, I simultaneously resist. I long to be here too. I love the comfort of being in my home, the same home I've been living in for the past ten years. I love how the stairs creak when you walk down them and I can instantly tell who is coming down by the sound it makes. I love my wonderful daddy's hugs and his genuine pleasure when I cook a good dinner. I love my momma's quick wit and her spontaneous phone calls inviting me too lunch not too mention her uncanny ability to warm even the coldest of feet in her "oven". That that bed stealing munchkin, well I guess you could say I love her too, maybe a little. I even love Jake, all bickering aside. I am abundantly blessed and my cup overflows. However, at the risk of sounding like a complainer, I must admit the richness of all the relationships in my life, makes it hard to be in just one place, to define home. It seems that just as soon as I begin to settle down, and establish normalcy (or establish the understanding of morning vs. funny vs. malicious snarkiness with my mom...the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, just sayin) it is time to change and establish a new normal.

The inevitable must occur; tomorrow morning despite my warring emotions, I return to Nashville. However, I am certainly thankful this second go-around has been significantly less traumatic (a year ago, I needed to be sedated...you think I'm kidding and boosted the economy with my Kleenex consumption).  As I begin to pack my life away into duffle bags, rubbermaid totes, and produce boxes courtesy of Ingles (my brother knows people...) the feeling is all too bittersweet. I have been struck time and again by the question "How many more times will I do this?" How many more times will I clutter the dining room with my absurd amount of belongings I time and again attempt to cram into half a 12x14 room? How long will this "limbo" phase last? My heart is torn between so many places. As uncomfortable as it is now, I know it is right. I have finally grasped that it IS age appropriate (mom, you better be so proud!) And while I long to be in the comforting arms of my family and within the familiar frame of my childhood home, that is not what God has for me in this season. No matter where I forever remain the daughter of my ever-loving parents, and the daughter of my ever-lasting, never-failing Abba. Though I may feel like a wandering nomad, I am home in Him. 

"A right time for birth and another for death, a right time to plant and another to reap, a right time to kill and another to heal,a right time to destroy and another to construct, a right time to cry and another to laugh, a right time to lament and another to cheer, a right time to make love and another to abstain, a right time to embrace and another to part, a right time to search and another to count your losses, a right time to hold on and another to let go, a right time to rip out and another to mend, a right time to shut up and another to speak up, a right time to love and another to hate, a right time to wage war and another to make peace." -Ecclesiastes 3:2-8