When You Just Don’t Want To

I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a grown woman stomp her foot and pout but I’m about two shakes of a lamb’s tail from getting that foot of mine ready.
I just don’t want to.
I received a text this morning from the cub scout leader. “LH is going to be a flag bearer at the Derby next week. Does he have all of his current patches?”

 

No. No, he doesn’t have his stinky new patches. He has his nice pretty patches from our beloved home that deep down in my heart I’m still wondering when we get to go back to.

 

I don’t want to put a new patch on. Those old patches are literally stuck on with patch adhesive. They’ve been washed and dried many a time and they are still clinging as if the very existence of life on earth depends on their adherence. They’re just not meant to come off. And why should they? It’s not like a quick tear of a bandaid that’s been on a week longer than it should. There is ripping involved. A purposeful grasping of the old patch, forcefully removing it, never to be adhered again. The two patches don’t even have the same shape, so underneath that new, shiny, stinky patch, there will be the outline of things gone by. Things that you can never put on again. The fabric where the patch is now will be forever changed.

 

My heart cannot take the ripping.  Because it’s not about putting a new patch on an old shirt. It’s a place. It’s home. As much as I hate to admit that, I am still clinging to every little thing I can that says we may go home one day. I haven’t changed my phone number. Or my driver’s license, even though it’s the worst photo I’ve ever taken in my life, to the point where the DMV Clerk actually said, “Ya know honey, if you ever decide you want a new picture, we can take one for $7.” Yes. To my face, she says this. Bless her. It really is a horrible picture. I haven’t changed the office location on our travel website. Sadly, I’m still in the mom groups on social media… just in case.  Mail is still being forwarded to my new house from two addresses ago. Truth. A permanent patch says “We belong here. This is our people, and we are their people, and we are all one.”

 

Who knew it would be a cub scout patch that would send me to the funny farm?

 

Truth is, I want to go home so badly. Not home to my house 30 minutes away. Home to home. Because we don’t yet – I don’t yet – feel like we belong. I want my old church where the kids loved their Sunday School, and where children’s church was meant for children – speaking God’s word on their own level. In my head I am stomping my foot because we visited yet another church on Sunday that didn’t quite fit, and my soul is so very tired of searching.

 

As I sit in my personal puddle the words do not come. Both sleeves of my long sleeved sweater are wet half way up my arm from dabbing the tears before they fell, and I have robbed my coworker of at least 10 tissues.

 

I try to count my blessings. I think of a dear friend whose husband went home to heaven this past weekend, and think that no matter what I am going through, it does not compare to her feelings today.

 

Another sweet mama friend whose own mama is in her last days, and will be going home to heaven soon.

 

A friend whose social media status read this morning, “My precious nephew went home to see Jesus Friday…”

 

And another passing of a husband and wife within my circle of friends. They too, “went home”.

 

They went home. Not home to where their old driver’s license says they lived a year ago. Not to where the embroidered cub scout patch says they belong. Not even to the location where the internet thinks they live.  They went home to heaven. That place to which our permanent residency changes the minute we accept a merciful God as our savior. That place where no home on earth can compare to. Where even the most beautiful of beautiful things cannot hold a candle to. That place where everything between here and there is a resting place, but not our final resting place.

 

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. ~ Phillipians 3:20

 

Oh how easy it is to get caught up in the things that make us comfortable, isn’t it? The places we love to come to after work, and the places we love to worship in, and the people we love to see every day.

 

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1

 

And how easy it is for us to want to cling to a season, long after God desires for us to transition into a new season? But God, our creator, and the one who breathed life into us, knows us far better than we know ourselves. He knows when a season is to end, even if we aren’t ready for the next season. He is the One who not only created us, but He is the One who created our life seasons. Not to torment us, or to make us miserable, but each season is meant to shape us, mold us, and bring us closer to Him, until that day when we do go home. 

 

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching moans.” (Our stomping feet? Yes, I do believe God knows our hearts in those as well. Our soggy sweaters, and wordless tears? Yes. He’s there too.) “He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”  ~ Romans 8:28, MSG

 

Friday, I’ll be heading to town to buy a new patch. Deep in my heart, I do want to. I want to be wherever God is, in the new season, in a new “home” and wherever He is. Because in every season there is a purpose, and in every detail, including cub scout patches, I (and you, dear friend) can hold onto the promise that our God will work it into something good.

 

Cheering for you,

 

XOXO,

 

Karen 

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