One day, while I was waiting on my husband to get back with a load, I stood looking out at our yard and simply thinking about how this is our first home together! The country song Home by Dierks Bentley popped into my head. Below are the lyrics...
West, on a plane bound west It’s been a long hard ride
I see her stretching out below Got a ways to go
Land, blessed mother land But this is still the place
The place where I was born That we all call home
Scars, yeah she’s got her scars Brave, gotta call it brave
Sometimes it starts to worry me To chase that dream across the sea
Cause lose, I don’t wanna lose Names, and they signed their names
Sight of who we are For something they believed
From the mountains high Red, how the blood ran red
To the wave crashed coast And we laid our dead in sacred ground
There’s a way to find Just think, wonder what they think
Better days I know If they could see us now
It’s been a long hard ride It’s been a long hard ride
Got a ways to go Got a ways to go
But this is still the place But this is still the place
That we all call home That we all call home
Free, nothing feels like free It’s been a long hard ride
Though it sometimes means we don’t get along And I won’t lose hope
Cause same, no we're not the same This is still the place
But that’s what makes us strong That we all call home
From the mountains high
To the wave crashed coast
There’s a way to find
Better days I know
So I stood, and thought. I tried to get my self worked up or emotional, for a lack of better words, about how important this is and all that this home means for us. This is our very first home to own together, my first home to ever own. This is where we will build and raise our family. This is where we will experience a lot of firsts. Then my mind took me back to every place I have ever lived. I realized that I have never felt at home anywhere. I have ever truly fit into any group or place. And I was reminded of how we are to be like aliens on this earth, our home is truly in heaven.
I could see my husband and our family playing in the yard, wrestling and throwing the football around. It was all very visible to me, and yet that big emotional "something" just wasn't there. It was like a scene out of a movie, a spouse watching their family doing something and all the while loving them with all that they have, but still thinking about a previous or first love, the one that got a way.
The difference is that my heart wasn't longing after another human being, my heart longs after my God! It even says in the Bible that if we love our fathers or mothers or anyone more than we love God, then we are not worthy of him. (Matthew 10:37-38 - 37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.)
This was such a revelation to me of just how important it is that we put God first, above all else. It is not meant that we are not to love others, that is one of the biggest charges God gives us, but we must always have God as number one!
Enjoy your time here on earth and enjoy the people in your life, but remember that this is not your home. All things down here will eventually come to an end, then your eternity begins. That my friends will never end.
~Awaken Us~
Brenna Stanford
