When Home Isn't Home Anymore

Last Saturday I got home from an amazing summer of ministry. Coming home I expected it to be the same as I have been used to for the past eight and a half years, but when I walked in home wasn't home anymore. Or at least it wasn't the home that I had left ten weeks prior. I came home to the news that my little sister had moved in and we were in the process of making the sewing / craft room into hers. That following day was full of moving stuff out and moving new stuff in and the next was going to stores getting stuff to make it more "roomy". It was chaos.

This past week I have been met with a whole new type of exhaustion: chaotic family exhaustion. Something I was able to take the summer out of only to be thrown back at it with winds blowing at hurricane speeds. I was met with the reality of what life story God has really given me, and I was also met with the reality that I can't live in camp life on a spiritual high forever. I knew that I would be tested as soon as I got home but I didn't expect this. Why God? I'm so tired.

Yet in the midst of the chaos I lost sight of an eight year prayer and a three year prayer: For me to be used as a light to my mom and for my little sister to move in so she can feel the love of Christ. Bam! And in that God humbled my selfish-self centered- poor me- boohoo heart. This is what I have been praying for and after a summer of answered prayer here God is showing up and showing off in a way I wouldn't have expected. I said in another blog that I couldn't wait to see how God shows up and shows off in the other staff's lives and all the while He was doing that for me. I just needed to open my eyes to it. He showed up after a summer of humbling and preparing for situations just as this. In that moment my, "Why, God? This is so overwhelming to come home to." was met by, "Thank You, Lord for being so faithful in answering prayers in Your timing and through Your power."

Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

This whole summer God was preparing me for this exact moment. Not only did He teach me a lot about selflessness and patience but He taught me how to minister to the lost and broken in a whole new light. He used me for the broken people in other families and now He is showing me that I need to allow myself to be used for the broken people in my own family.

He is sovereign and righteous and loving and just and true and gracious and merciful and patient and more than my words could ever say. And yet still He wants to use this selfish sinner to radiate His love and compassion, and if that isn't humbling I don't know what is.

Thank You, Lord, for making my home not my home anymore.


You Make me Brave - Amanda Cook
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLgpFMWboYw


1 John 5:14-15
"And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him."