Home Again

It was almost like it wasn't in God's plans for me to meet with Him this week. My meeting day ended up being Thursday instead of Monday. My first try was to go to the prayer room at our church. I've been there before, but for some reason, I couldn't remember the code this time and none of the church secretaries knew it either. So, next, I decided to go home, but the maid was still there, so I just turned around in the neighbor's drive way. As I was pulling out of the neighborhood, I thought about our local library and that's where God and I finally had our little talk.

As I sat in the chair at the back of the library, all I could do was just sit. I honestly didn't know where to begin. After a few moments, I decided to start with my life verse in Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." For the first time in a long time, I could finally believe that verse again. I could reach out, grab it, and hang on to that truth and promise. I thanked God for the plans He had for my life, all the past, present, and future plans and I prayed that He would help me learn to love those plans even when my life felt lost and out of control. I prayed for contentedness (is that even a word?) in my current station in life and to rejoice and find my happiness in my family and friends.

And then I decided to back up to verse 10: "..."You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again." This was when the tears began to flow. Home. Where was home? I had lost my way. I had been in Babylon, in bondage, all these months because of my own personal dissatisfaction with my job. I had allowed this bondage to seep into every part of my being until it began to take a physical, emotional, and spiritual toll on my body, my life, and my relationships. I thought about this for a long time and then I did the only thing I knew I could do, and that was to repent.

A few months ago, when I was in the very middle of all this turmoil, my best friend showed me verses 12 & 13, "In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me." Back then, I read them, but I couldn't claim them as truth. I didn't want to believe it; I didn't want to pray; and I wasn't interested in looking for God at the time. But when I read those verses on Thursday, it was if God Himself was speaking to me. "Talk to me, Laura, and I will listen. Look for me with your heart - not your feelings - and you will find me."

And then, verse 14, "I will be found by you...I will end your captivity...and I will bring you home again..." Three times in that verse, God says, "I will." For the first time, I realized that none of the events that have taken place over the past two years had anything to do with me; they were filtered through the fingertips of God FOR me. To save me from myself! I found God, that day in the Christian bookstore, when I opened the Bible and saw, "The Lord hears His people when they call to Him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the broken-hearted.” It was the first day that I actually began looking for Him again. My captivity ended Thursday when God reminded me that I will never find true happiness this side of Heaven. My job won't make my happy, my husband and daughter won't make me happy, my friends won't make me happy....my happiness comes from Christ Alone and this is the piece that I began missing - the piece that eventually began fading - two years ago. Now, I certainly still have a way to go. Lots of improvement and changes need to occur, but I knew that I had finally found the missing piece.

Home. Full circle. Definitly not on the mountain top, but certainly no longer in the valley. Bon Jovi has a new song out entitled, "Who Says You Can't Go Back Home" and a few lines in the song are: "I was looking for something you can't replace/I was running away from the only thing I've ever known." When you've been a believer for a while and you've been raised in church and preached to all your life, the Bible, Jesus' love, and God are the only things you've ever known. And I was looking for satisfaction, joy, and fulfillment in something other than the only thing I've ever known. Home is where our life story begins. Home is where God continues His miraculous work in our lives to make us more like Him. You can always go back to God. You can always go home again.