This blog is written by Becca Wellan. Nanny for two littles. Caffeine addict. Child of God.

Things that stress me out: Bees, balloons, and house hunting.

The past few weeks, I’ve been singing The Renters Blues to myself as I scroll through Craigslist every five minutes. But hey, who’s counting? Apparently the availability rate in Bellingham is 1% right now. Pour me a glass of that sweet tea, wouldya honey? I made it with the lemons life gave me.

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. Just a little. But hey, finding a new place, ideally with some walls and a roof, is pretty high on my “adulting” list now that I bought a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Since I moved out of my parents to go to Western, I’ve searched for a place to live each year. A place of rest and refuge; where I feel safe. A place filled up with laughter, shared tears, and welcoming arms. A place I can feel at home.

As I’ve wrestled through some emotionally rough patches these past few months, I’ve come to realize that my search for home goes much deeper than just finding some walls, a roof, and a lease sign.

Since I could breathe, my soul has been aching for home. It’s at the core of who I am. It’s how I’m wired. The grace I’ve found in these last few months is that I’ve been forced to re-think where I’m trying to find it.

If you are human (if you can read this, I’m 98% certain you are), you naturally long to feel safe. You desire to be fully known, flaws and all, yet be fully accepted. To be comforted, and deeply loved. To have stability and consistency. When you find this, you find home. That’s how God wired you.

Since I could breathe, my soul has been aching for this kind of home. And, I always find it in relationships. This is not always a bad thing. Community and deep friendships are some of the most beautiful gifts God gives us. God’s people, though sinful, are His presence in a broken world. I fully believe that.

But here’s the catch:

People aren’t always there for you when you need them. People make stupid decisions that break your heart. People will forget about you, they will back out on their plans with you. They will hurt you, even with the best intentions. And, there is always the gut-wrenching chance they will leave you.  

The problem is that I find myself banking on other people to come through for me, every time I need them. I need their comforting words, their reassurance, their presence, to feel okay again.

So where do you find home? Who do you depend on to always make you feel safe, to love you completely, to never fail you?

God wired us to long to be loved perfectly, to be deeply connected to a constant anchor when the storms come. But, other people have storms, too.

So why did God wire us this way?

“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” // Psalm 27:4-5

We are wired to seek after God’s presence, as long as we live. He is our constant anchor; no one else - no matter how great they are - can be that for us. We are wired to long for His company, to run into His arms when the our storms come. To know Him, and be known by Him.

We truly find home when our desire for home is met in Christ Jesus. It’s what we were designed for. Only through believing in Him can we be fully known yet fully accepted. Only in Him can we find true comfort. Only through believing in Him, and living each day resting in His constant, unbreakable friendship, can you come home.

Each day, may our heartcry be, “Lord, may I find my home in you all the days of my life.”

I still don’t have a place to live in the fall. I’ve been making phone calls and looking at property management websites even as I’ve been writing this. But I can put my laptop away and rest, knowing that my greatest need for home has already been met.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” // Matthew 11:28

Homesickness by definition is: the distress or impairment caused by an actual or anticipated separation from home. Its cognitive hallmark is preoccupying thoughts of home and attachment objects.

My husband and I have moved nine times in our life together. Some in town and some cross country. Each move has left its mark even if we were moving ahead with excitement and anticipation we’ve still had to leave dear friends and family behind. We have left dreams of what we thought would be. In doing so you can imagine I've experienced my fair share of homesickness. At times it came with waves rolling in and out of familiar nostalgia. Other times it was swift and piercing. We've lived in our current house for five years which is almost a record for us. So it's right on schedule that we've recently started to get the longing for something new. It’s too soon to tell whether the longing in something that God has placed on our hearts or whether we’ve just had a bad week. I think there are times homesickness can present itself when circumstances are difficult. When we are struggling we sometimes long for the home we haven't yet seen. We think- if we only (fill in the blank) then we'd be happy. Content. Sometimes, for me, the feelings of homesickness isn’t due to being separated from home but separated from thoughts of what home could be.

One of the moves we’ve had was from a home that we thought was the one. We loved it and the property it sat upon. We had such dreams and hopes for the future we would have there. Through a series of events that “forever home” is no longer ours. Turns out it was temporary after all. 

For some time after I dealt with feelings of shame, guilt, remorse and homesickness. We were “responsible" people. We did everything possible to keep that home and avoid foreclosure. But it wasn't ours to keep. It wasn't our forever home. That's what I walked away with. No matter the dorm, apartment, basement, duplex, gorgeous house you lay your head at tonight it's only sticks & stones. Temporary. But there is hope. No matter how fleeting the time in our houses here is or not, there is hope.

Our hope can be in this: the homesickness and longing we experience are for our home with God. Our place is beside Him. We weren't made to live separate from Him. On our own. We will always experience homesickness in this world no matter if we are near family or not. No matter if we have that extra bathroom or not. We will always have longing for "something more." Because there is something more. Something forever. Something that will satisfy and allow us to no longer feel as though we are strangers in this world. That is something to put our hope in. What if we spent a little more time thinking about our true "forever home?" What if instead of thinking what all we could do to the houses we live in now (don’t get me wrong I love Chip & Joanna too) we spent that time thinking about how we could prepare for the home we will have when time doesn't end? Maybe, just maybe, our longings then would turn to thoughts of joy and hope rather than distress or impairment. Maybe then our homesickness would draw us closer to The One who holds the only key we will need for all of eternity. 

This week's article is by Theresa Adams, a Redeemer member, a wife & a mom, who would someday love to have her own roller skating rink & thinks getting her kids to eat kale is major victory!

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deuteronomy 6:6-7 ESV)

Yup, if you are a parent or a primary care-giver, you have been called by God to teacher your kids about Him everyday, every moment, in everything you do. That seems daunting, right? Over the next few blogs, I hope to break down the above verse into small, manageable parts so that the idea of discipling kids isn’t so overwhelming with the hope that as we intentionally disciple our kids, it will become second nature - something that we do as we sit and walk and lie down and rise and text and drive to soccer practice and grocery shop and play video games…

So here are three ways to start being that primary discipler:

1.  Talk to your kids daily about God.

Pick one time during the day when you will consistently - or as consistently as possible with crazy schedules - talk to your kids about God. This could be at breakfast or dinner or before bed. Just pick one and make it a routine.

One way that family devotionals have been consistent for us as a family is that we do them as we finish our meal…notice I said “as we finish” our meal. The reason we do our devotionals as we finish is to help bridge that age gap span between our 4 kids who are 7-12. They are all in different places emotionally, physically and spiritually so everyone is still “present” during each conversation if they are eating and sitting still even if the conversation takes a more mature turn for our 10 year old son. And to be honest, it also helps me - mom - not be rushing to move on to clean up dishes and get ready for bed, which I was always tempted to do when we did devotionals at the end of the meal.

2.  Decide what you are going to say.

For most of us this seems easy in theory but in reality it is really daunting. Questions like what book in the Bible should I read to my kids first or what devotional should I use or do I need to explain the Trinity first or how do I explain reformed theology to my 4 year-old can make the task seem overwhelming. My advice - just start somewhere.

Over the course of parenting for the last 12 years, my family has started and stopped numerous family devotionals. We have read through proverbs, then the Jesus Storybook Bible, and made it through the first quarter of The Long Story Short probably 3 times. We have used the family devotionals provided by Redeemer Kids, The New City Catechism and even done season devotionals. And we start each with good intentions but sometimes they don’t work for the stage of life our kids are in (we have four spanning from 7-12) or for our schedule.

This might sound like we aren’t very “devoted” to devotionals but the reason I shared that is to say it is simply important to make it a priority, even if the devotional you pick doesn’t work long term. If you make it a regular rhythm in your home, then your kids will begin to expect it to happen and they will grow as disciples in their love of God and the Gospel!

3.  Pray for your kids and pray with your kids.

God is sovereign over His relationship with your kids and with you and you get to be the agent that the Holy Spirit uses to teach your kid about Him. How amazing is that! So spend time in prayer asking God to give you the words to speak to your kids and then model this prayer with your kids so that they grow up praying as well.

And help your kids learn to pray corporately by attending Redeemer’s dinner and prayer night. This will not only help you grow in your prayer life by seeing how the Holy Spirit is prompting others to pray, but it will help kids see that this is an amazing thing - not something weird that only your family does at dinner or at bedtime. Your whole family will get to experience being part of the family of Redeemer and petitioning God together.

I pray that as all of us seek to be the primary disciple makers in our homes that we would experience the amazing power of the Gospel more completely and we would fall more in love with our Savior so that we can pass on these affections to our kids.

3 Ways A Man Should Lead His Home: A man who loves Jesus and leads his family well has at least three roles in common with the man who is called to lead the church.

4 Ways to Love Those With Mental Illness: It is time to face the fact that there are millions of people who struggle with mental illness and the church must rise up and disciple them. Jesus Christ is greater than any mental illness and even though anxiety wins many of battles, I always remember that Jesus Christ has already won the war. We will be raised up. We will have new creation bodies. We will not suffer forever. He is the resurrection and life.

Blue Collar Man: On Financial Struggle and Working For A Living: In general, youngish-Reformed evangelicals tend to be a pretty affluent, heavily degreed, upwardly mobile lot with a surplus of time to read websites and grow their considerable book collections. [1] With “providing” often being a top priority for Reformed men, this group generally has a clear vocational plan and usually gets plenty of opportunities to implement said plan. And because we tend to be small-government capitalists, we tend to feel pretty good about ourselves when we’re making lots of bank–and don't feel conflicted about enjoying it. And in general (again), readers of TGC tend to be pastors, professors, seminary students, theology nerds, or wives of the aforementioned. But what about those who don't fit this social/cultural Reformed paradigm, including in their vocations? 

God's Will For Your Wait: Sometimes God calls us to wait, and that is hard. But waiting for God is not passive; it is active, purposeful, and spiritual.

Stuck In Relationships: I've spent thousands of hours in counseling sessions with people who are stuck in relationships. It wasn't always a husband and wife in a marriage gone bad; any two people in any type of relationship can find themselves stuck.

The Child Of The Future: Like college football, the world for young people has changed dramatically. High exposure to media via technology and the deluge of mixed messages in the culture have created an incredibly difficult landscape for parents and children to navigate.

The God Of Diverse Excellencies: Jesus is calling. Do you hear his voice? There is no voice like his. Only in Jesus Christ will you find a God who is both a strong Lion and a slain Lamb. Only in him will you find a God of so many beautiful and diverse excellencies.

photo credit: Graham Ballantyne via photopin cc