of belonging.

"if home is where the heart is, 

family is where the soul is."

This is something that I have been pondering a lot lately, and I thought I better explore it a bit more with you while it's very present in my mind.

I officially began my last first day of classes at Redeemer today.  I had been feeling increasingly overwhelmed when I considered these two weeks as it not only meant a lot of work, but it signifies the end of something that has become a staple in my summer for the past 2 years.  And when something ends, it's only a matter of time til something new begins, which brings with it immense amounts of excitement, but also heaps and piles and loads of tension.  Change is not something that any of us fully know how to embrace well, and as these 2 weeks of intensive class discussion, homework and excessive thinking began I can't help but consider what my future really holds.

Lately I have been finding myself longing for close, intimate relationship.  Every part of me wants, seemingly more than anything, to have someone come alongside and ask how I am doing, engage with my life with the same intensity I long to engage with theirs.  Someone who makes me heart flutter and feel alive with passion.  Someone who sees what God is doing in my life and gets more excited than me.  Someone who prays fierce prayers and holds me so tight I would sense them still there once they're long gone.  

Now I have wonderful friends who are very invested and care deeply for me, so when I say that lately I have been feeling the longing, I mean literally in the past couple of days, maybe weeks or so.  Every time I consider the unknown future is really when this starts to get to me.  It would be so easy to force this relationship out of someone - to appeal to their needs and let them appeal to mine.  However, I know this is something that is sneaking in because of the magnitude of what lies  before me.  God is continually calling me to trust what He has next - and as much as see that the tangible thing is SBS in Montana, I wonder and question and wrestle and argue and try to enlighten God with how I will get there.  Applying and getting accepted to SBS is opening up to be one of the most challenging experiences because there is so much not in my control.  And it is in this place of complete vulnerability that has the ability to distract me completely from the end goal (SBS) and place before me very appealing and quick fix opportunities.  In this case, the longing for intimate relationship.  NOW I don't mean to say that intimate relationship isn't something to hope for, because it most definitely is something wonderful to long for and hope for and dream and desire.  But I cannot force that to happen any more than I can take away this heat we're having.  That place of intimacy with that one other person isn't a place I can go forcefully on my own.  But the place I can go is to where I belong, and to the people who belong with me (not in an ownership or entitlement sense.  Try to track with me on this one).

You see I am starting to realize, more deeply than ever, that my family are those people who are where my soul is.  My soul lies in Christ, it is His forever - as am I.  If your soul is also rested in His, you are also there with me.  My life - your life - is secure and safe in the the Lord's hands.  My future is completely in His good, strong hands.  He is nothing less than perfect.  He desires nothing less than intimate relationship with us, and as much as that comes most obviously (not often or as a need) through a covenantal marriage relationship, that just isn't something that He's given me right now.  But He has given me family who is incredibly loving, honouring, understanding, and gracious (amongst many other wonderful things).  

So I put it to you: to Whom do you belong?

I am not saying that for you to come into the understanding that you first and foremost (above even those such as your husband, your best friend, your parents, your siblings) belong to Christ you will immediately have happy-go-lucky, joyful, sunshiney warm summer weather kind of days.  In fact when we are called into Christ's family we are guaranteed a life that will be hard.  Nonetheless, we are first and foremost called to belong.  

John 5:39-40 says, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life."

I am not saying that you shouldn't read your Bible to experience Jesus - but I am saying that some of us are so focused on the moralities or legalities of Christianity we miss out on the true freedom in Christ - a true sense of belonging.  How often do we really surrender our fears, hopes, dreams - our good, honest, honouring to Christ, wonderful dreams - to God?   How often do we just let ourselves *belong*.  Of course, this may come in the form of reading Scripture, and if so that is wonderfully ideal.  But for many of us it happens in song in our bedrooms, in moments of silence on a long walk, in that drive in our car while we're screaming at the rain or on the edge of the ocean on the verge of letting the waves swallow us up.  Whatever it is - let yourself belong.  Don't worry about the rest.  It will fall in line. 

Belonging to our Father who loves us deeply, who is intimately connected to our every twist and turn of our journey - that is not captivity, but utter freedom in a world that longs to drag us down, weary and worn and turn us into statistics of children who have fallen by the way side.  You deserve more than that.  You deserve to know that you are loved.  You are free.  You deserve to know that you belong.

Hope in the belonging.  See the others who are belonging with you - and not just that one other, but the family of others that is standing around you.  Look up.  Reach Out.  Hope in something beyond yourself.  Trust in the fact you belong.


Next is believing - but rest in the fact that you belong for a while.  Let that sink in.  Let that run deep.  Let that move you.  Don't rush the process.  As much as it's the struggle, this is what will ground you.  

I'm definitely with you on this one.

To Whom do you belong?