Learning To Go Home

Kind of a funny title, right?  Learning to go home?

In this great and vast time of figuring things out and giving over control, I realized something.  I really don't know who I am, and what I think of myself is actually a jumbled mess of what everyone else's perception of who Lori Olivier is.  I have learned to fit a mold that I am outgrowing.  In the process of getting lost in who I am, I forgot how to get back home.

This weekend I went home.  I spent time with my brother and sister-in-law, my niece and my nephew, another brother and a dear friend.  As my niece came in the house, she gave me the biggest, grandest hug I have ever received from anyone.  I knew I was home.

Then I went to the Pursuit of Excellence marching band competition at SMSU (where I went to college) with a dear friend from college.  It was fun and exciting being in the new stadium and enjoying that experience with someone who understood what it was like to be a Mustang.  I was home.

This hasn't always been an easy process.  Back in college a series of unfortunate events took place that brought great heartache and great hatred of a school and town I once loved.  For many years I couldn't be in Marshall without all of those old things coming back again.  I let others take my identity, who I was, and trade it in for who they wanted me to be.  It has been a process to get through all of that junk to the point now where I can be in Marshall and feel like I am finally back.  Finally home.  Enjoy the good memories and feel excitement being back in my old college town.  I am even going back this next weekend to enjoy homecoming festivities.  I am very excited about that.

Even being back with family is different.  Letting go and working through all of the history and the hurt and the anger of past events has brought about a new appreciation for being with my family.  Slowly, slowly, slowly I am being renewed day by day.  Those places in my heart where distrust and hurt have lived for so long are being evicted and home is starting to feel more like home again.

And, I am learning to go Home.  To the One who sees my future, who has redeemed my past and is restoring my present.  I am learning more and more everyday about the path that leads me Home.   His Truth lights the way and all I can do is take a step at a time to get there.

God is slowly working me through relationships.  He is showing me the difference between being a friend of convenience and a true friend.  Between being a member of a family or being a daughter and a sister in His strength.  He is showing me, through my relationships, who those people are and what needs to be worked on to restore the relationships or step away from the unhealthy ones and let Him take control until it is healthy again.  It is painful.  It is uncomfortable.  It is necessary.

Something big was accomplished this weekend, though.  I finally learned how to go home.

"My soul yearns, even faints,
   for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
   for the living God.  Even the sparrow has found a home,
   and the swallow a nest for herself,
   where she may have her young—
a place near Your altar,
   O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in Your house;
   they are ever praising You." -Psalm 84:2-4