Collection for "Home"

[Preface: I do not share this for the reasons that may seem obvious and predictable - some self-seeking need to be loved in return or find significance in the past.  I wrote this as simply an outlet on my iPhone while I rode in the car as the melody to a particular song pricked my heart.  But then I decided I wanted to share it.  Simply because it is truth and we very rarely choose to just share the darn honest truth with one another.  We don't always feel it necessary to let one another know how we feel. However, I know many of you read this blog to hear about our new life and what God has done and is doing.  I feel it would be a disservice to share all of the wonderment without the reality of the difficulty that often accompanies a calling and the hardship in leaving your homeland simply in faith.  Not that it is not so completely the right thing to do exactly whatever it is God calls you to, but as your journey on the road marked out for you, please never hear from Betsy that it was ever meant to be easy or that you don't want to turn around sometimes...or just stop where you are and not move a muscle...or that sometimes the path is clear to the eye but branches or debris may still be there and you will still have to deal with it.  Nothing about God's will means ease or comfort or perfection.  It means instead peace and empowerment and the glory of the Father.  It is you who must choose what is more important to you.  And me, for me.  I want to echo Joshua concerning me and my house.  I want to serve the Lord.  So there may be tears then.  And heartache.  And wonderful things left behind...]

What I have realized with more clarity since I left Salina in a fury of excitement and mixed emotions is the extreme joy and blessing I lived amidst with all of you (specifically, FCC and even more specifically, FCYM).  You each provided such deep joy in my life.  I took (and still take) joy in your accomplishments, your healing, your positive choices, your life turn-arounds.  I took (and take as I remember today) joy in the beauty of creativity and unique wonder with which God created each of you.  And whenever I said I love you and I would miss you, I had no idea how much I would mean it.  Because I don't think it's that absence makes the heart grow fonder.  No, absence helps us to appreciate in its fullness all we have lost...or walked away from.  Not that I regret walking away...because it is exactly what I was supposed to do, and I still have joy.  Just a different kind of joy.  It's different, and sometimes that is hard.  I miss you all.  I miss the genuine smile that flew to my face when you each walked in the door every Wednesday night or Sunday morning...and in the door of my house every Friday and Saturday night.  I miss your personalities, your quirks, your jokes, the little every day things about life with you.  Because Facebook creeping just doesn't give those things.  It doesn't bring you to life in front of me.  And it doesn't allow me to do life with you and for so long...that was my life, that is what I did.  Now, I do something else.  I do life with others, and I love it and find joy when it brings glory to God.  But, I still miss everything about each one of you.

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Thank you for loving me so fully and unconditionally, Salina.  Thank you for so graciously letting me literally grow up in your presence.  Thank you for providing so many safe places and so many blessings that I cannot count them.  Thank you for being a place I want to and am proud to call "home."