It is Thanksgiving week, and despite the fact that Thursday will just be a regular work day at LCC, I find my thoughts circling toward home and family. We had a beautiful dumping of snow on Friday and Saturday, which means I felt justified in cranking up the Christmas music and cooking most of the day on Saturday. In the midst of preparations and daily duties this weekend, a feeling of peacefulness and centeredness settled over me as delicately as the thick wet flakes that caught on my coat.
This is a time of year when it is so easy to miss one’s family. And yet, lately I have been reminded that I am very much part of a family here and everywhere. Last Wednesday I had a great conversation with one of the staff members (Jon) I don’t talk to very often. We were talking about surrendering our hearts and plans to God, whether we’re single or in a relationship or whatnot. (Yes, this is a common topic of conversation with me!) He is at the beginning of a relationship and is full of joy at God’s provision and guidance for he and his girlfriend. Sharing in his joy gives me strength to hold onto trust in God. I hold onto that trust and say aloud, in the tiny bit of Lithuanian I know, Aš nežinau daug, bet aš žinau kad Dievo geras. (I don't know a lot, but I know that God is good).
Jon asked me a great question that afternoon. He asked me if I had considered what this illusive hope of marriage means to me, if I had sought out the root of that desire and surrendered that desire to God. I thought a minute and realized that what marriage represents for me is the desire for home. Realizing that, I can see that what I need to rest in is the fact that the Church is my home – it is our family. Even more, heaven is my home, and my heart will be restless for that place as long as I live, married or no.
But community, relationship, family – that is what Christian faith offers me. Some days here I am tempted to despair, to wallow in loneliness (as I must admit, I did a little bit of after Fall Break). And yet, so beautifully, God reminds me that there is a whole community – a whole family – that surrounds me. When I feel like the friendship deck at LCC has been reshuffled, and I have been dealt out, even momentarily, God speaks to me with tenderness and reprimand. “You are not alone.”
I once heard someone say that, “home is where God is, and we feel him in each other.” This past weekend – through the LCC Thanksgiving celebration, time spent with Lithuanian church friends, and in Spirit-filled prayer with students – I experienced that intense belonging that can exist in God’s family.
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