We almost talked ourselves into staying at 603 West 11th Street for a second year, but we found out in the meantime that the casida behind us was available and much cheaper.
We Hobbses may not be the best with money, but sometimes we make a good decision, especially when there's a bun in the oven.
At any rate, as I think about the past year that we've spent in our house, my attention turns more and more to the concept of home.
I guess this kind of thinking dates back about four or so years for me, when my brother took off and went to seminary in Birmingham. Up until then, even though we were in Southern California and our parents were up where we grew up, in Greenwood (beyond Cool), Casey and I always had each other, and we even had Dusty to hang out with during our first year of college at CBU.
So, when Casey left for school, I think that was the first time I ever really experienced a real loss of "home". It really was the first time I felt out of place in regard to where I was living.
But it's not like home left forever and didn't ever come back. In the following couple of years, I experienced real community--"home"--among with good friends and roommates. Along the way, I met Janelle, and our experience of home together began two years ago on an evening in June.
Together we have a great home, even though we feel like a couple of tent-dwellers when our lease comes to a close. Regardless of where we live, there's real community in our home. We fight together, laugh together, and pursue our God and His kingdom together. I dig our home.
And I especially dug our home over the past few months, when our good friends, the Warfields, lived with us throughout the end of Hannah's pregnancy and the first month or so of little Judah Warfield's life.
That's why it felt so strange coming home to an empty house a couple of nights ago. Janelle and I had grown so accustomed to sharing life with Hannah and Garrett (and of course, Judah), that when they finally moved out of 603 West 11th Street, they took with them a good piece of what "home" had become.
I don't want to sound overly emotional (too late for that, I'm sure), but I really miss my brothers. I miss hanging out with Garrett and talking about the Gospel over a World Cup game, and I miss hanging out with Casey and talking Bonhoeffer in between pitches of a wiffle ball game.
But maybe it's more than me just being emotional. Maybe what I'm feeling has more to do with who God is and who he's called his people to be. We are wanderers, way-faring strangers, pilgrims, strangers in a strange land. We, like our father Abraham, are looking forward to a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
And as long as we redeemed ones are apart from our God bodily, I think we're going to feel like this from time to time.
We'll feel like we're missing part of home, even when we are at home, because the truth is that we're still waiting to arrive at that place that Jesus said he's preparing for us. We won't be whole and fully at rest until we are able to see him as he is.
We'll be at home when we enter into the Celestial City, when our pilgrimage has come to an end.
Think about what Jesus had to give up to guarantee us entrance into this land--this city whose designer and builder is God:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped
but made himself nothing,
taking on the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself and became obedient
to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Or, if you're like me and want to read a hymn about it, here's one to help:
He left his father's throne above,
so free, so infinite his grace.
Emptied himself of all but love,
and bled for Adam's helpless race.
'Tis mercy all, immense and free
for O my God, it found out me.
Amazing love, how can it be
that thou, my God shouldst die for me?
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