“Go put that turtle back where he belongs.” It was a phrase I often heard in my childhood. Spoken by my mother, aunt, grampa, gramma, and any other adult who happened to be around me. Any adult who would be still long enough to examine my find, anyway. It was a phrase always followed by this frustrating moment of realizing that I wished I hadn’t shown them the turtle. It was a phrase that slumped my shoulders as I meandered back the way I came. It was a phrase I never understood. I understand it now. Home is a weird… what’s a good word for it? Building? Land? Family? Place? Concept? Thing? Home is a weird thing. Eloquent, I know. Home knows you in a way nothing else does. It sees everything you do, and it does not judge you. Whether you are a good person or a bad person, your home will guard you just the same. It accepts you. Home is a comforting place. A place where you can be who you are -- junk food, tears, and all. Home is familiar. Love it or hate it, you know all its nooks and crannies. The best restaurants, the longest lights, the dorky events. Home is a keeper of memories. The first time you made that meal just right. The sob fests. Chasing one another around the house until you fall on the floor, laughing. The fights. Realized again just how fiercely you love the person you are living with. The pain. The first Christmas tree wrapping falling to the ground. The first mug of hot cider and cookies. The first flowers blooming in the yard. The first time throwing a party for your friends. The first, the first, the first. For me, there have been a lot of firsts in this home. If I am honest, I never thought Joplin would become my home. But somehow, while my back was turned, God made this place my home. I understand the turtle now. The phrase that followed the first was always, “It isn’t nice to move him from his home just because you’re bigger than him.” And, as much as it broke my heart, it made enough sense in my little girl brain. I wanted to keep that turtle so badly… but he had a home. I had no right to take that from him. The place where that story differs from my “turtle-experience” is that the One moving me has every right. This is going to be news to most of you since this is the first I have released this information to the general public: God has decided to move Jarod and I to Northwest Arkansas. Trust me, I understand the turtle. Suddenly, now that it is happening to me, being picked up from what you know, where you have fought so hard to get to, and being set down somewhere else is… shocking? It’s not really a strong enough word, but it’s the only thing short of “terrifying” that I can come up with, and the latter seems too strong. So, we’ll go with shocking. It is shocking. By no act of our own (besides prayer and fasting for our lives to change), God has picked us up and set us down in a new state, with new jobs, and new people. The landscape is new. The city is new. The house is new. New, new, new. Gone are the “first, first, first.” They must be remade, replaced. Unlike child-Tiana, I have come to realize that home takes effort to be created. The thing that is home is a product made with tools -- time, experiences, and people. No one just walks into a new house and declares it equal to the home they are leaving. Home doesn’t work like that. This house doesn’t know me. This house isn’t a comfort. This house isn’t familiar. This house doesn’t know my memories. It is no wonder that the adults in my life told me to put the turtle back. However, unlike child-Tiana, I trust God to know where he is putting me. Instead, this kind of forced move was like when you are driving and find a turtle in the middle of the road. Life has nearly crushed them several times; they are just trying to make it to the other side alive. So you pick them up, move them. God has moved us to the other side of the road. And I am grateful, albeit shocked. In this process, though, what I have found is that a turtle shell is not something to overlook. What is home? The building? The land? The family? The place? The concept? The turtle shell. A turtle’s shell is something that is a part of the turtle. It protects the turtle. It provides a place for the turtle to hide when it is scared. It holds the turtle against the elements. The crazy thing is that God is not just the one moving me -- he is also the shell that goes with me, the home that will always be there. The home that protects. The home that provides. The home that holds. No matter where I go, No matter where he sends me, No matter what I lose, God will remain.
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October 2019
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