Homesick

Play the song, and read the lyrics.  I'll continue below.

 

I lose some sales

and my boss won't be happy

but I can't stop listening to the sound

of two soft voices blended in perfection

from the reels of this record that I found

every day there's a boy in the mirror

asking me

what are you doing here

finding all my previous motives

growing increasingly unclear

I travelled far and I burned all the bridges

I believed as soon as I hit land

all the other

options held before me

will wither in the light of my plan

so I lose some sales

and my boss won't be happy

but there's only one thing on my mind

searching boxes underneath the counter

on a chance that on a tape I'd find

a song for

someone who needs somewhere

to long for

homesick

cause I no longer know

where home is

Nicholas L. Laning

Those last few words, "homesick, cause I no longer know, where home is," are some of the greatest lyrics ever.  So simple, yet so powerful.  The idea of being homesick, not because home is out there and you are separated from it, but because it has been lost inside yourself.  It has broken my heart many times, but it flat out devastated me in the midst of my depression.  

One of the most powerfully terrible sensations was being around my parents and not feeling their "parentness" any longer.  No longer could I feel the essence of my mother or father.  I recall moments where I stared into their eyes as I spoke to them, searching for what was once there.  My soul had been lost to the abyss.  The idea of home was gone, not because home ceased to exist, but because I ceased to exist.  

Every morning, when I got ready for the day, I would find myself in front of the mirror and just stare.  My brow would furrow.  My focus would sharpen, going form pupil to pupil trying to see if that day, I could find anything in there.  It took eight years before little bits of me started showing up, before I started to show up.  

Every now and then, as I am cruising down the road, especially if I am driving over one of the many massive clover leaf overpasses that connect our main thoroughfares here in Dallas, I recall what it felt like to drive for the first time.  Something I now often loathe was once absolutely wonderful.  It is in that same vain that I now must stop, look in the mirror, and not take for granted that I can see myself, that I can feel the essence of my father and mother, that my heart might be thankful.  Even still, I am not home.  I am still homesick.  Read below to see where home is.

JOHN 14:1-7

1 "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 

2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 

3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and WILL TAKE YOU TO MYSELF, THAT WHERE I AM YOU MAY BE ALSO. (emphasis mine)

4 And you know the way to where I am going."  

5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"  

6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  

7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

 I added that emphasis in verse three because I have heard this verse a ton throughout life, and the emphasis has always been on the house, on the rooms.  We still just want Jesus' stuff, God's stuff, but our home isn't that house, it is Him.  One day, if we are His, He will bring us home.  He will bring us to Himself.  Amen.

Hope in What is Unseen

Double Rainbow Over The Irish Sea by Nicholas L. Laning

Things have been beyond rough.  Due to discretion, I am not going to be specific about most of the things.  I can say that Saturday morning, as I was driving to go be a part of Transform, a ministry through our church, I was met with the heart breaking news of my Nanna's death.  At first, I was tempted to turn back around and sit at home, but I am glad I didn't.  Being alone would have been bad.  Instead I was comforted greatly with some surprise conversation.  Also, the kind and comforting words of our Pastor, Steve Hardin, went along way.

When Daddy Jake (my granfather) died in February, I wept for days.  It was normal.  It was healthy.  It was a beautiful expression of my affection.  When I heard about Nanna, on top of the seemingly endless list of trials that has come our way lately, I reacted in a way all too familiar to most of you.  I did not weep.  Instead, my brain just stopped.  Too much pain.  Too much sorrow.  Too much stress.  Time to close up shop.  There is no room for me in this life.  I must become hard to survive.  That is the lie that was reaching up from out of the shadows to grip my mind.  Again and again I just did the opposite of what I felt like doing, and I kept praying.  "God, may you be praised in all this.  Please soften my heart.  Please don't let me fall back into the abyss.  Please Father."  And that is when I remembered so many things that helped me get through depression.  Things forgotten, if only in part.  Things we must talk about, like, how to act and believe regardless of what you feel.  To be able to not let your feelings dictate what you believe.  Influence, yes.  Dictate, no.

Or, I had forgotten about the most amazing weapon against depression.  HOPE.  Hoping in things that aren't yet seen.  Years went by with me sulking.  I would hope when I had reason to, when I was shown.  But if I see it, then it isn't hope.  


Romans 8:24-28
24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?  
25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.  
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 
27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.  
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

We cannot wait for things to get better to praise God.  No, it is here, in the middle of the pain, that lies the greatest opportunity for praise.  So, God be praised.  He is wonderful.  He is precious.  He is beautiful, and not later, when things are better, but right now, even through the thick of blinding pain.