Where Am I Now?

There are days I awaken and have this odd feeling that I don’t recognize my surroundings. I’m not saying that I’m not in my own bedroom or in my own home. It’s just this feeling of disequilibrium; this sense of things just not being right. We rarely get lost in place anymore — too much of Google or Apple Maps, Waze, and other navigational aids available. But if you’re anything like me, I occasionally have that lost feeling; something is missing or out of place; I don’t belong. Maybe, it is just me. Usually, this feeling will pass after a few minutes. Sometimes it takes longer.

Juli, Victoria and I recently traveled to Virginia to visit family. We stayed in a hotel, drove many places and enjoyed the time sharing with family and family friends. Other than a slightly sore back (beds!), during this trip, I may have felt some wariness doing the travel thing, but I never had that sense of things not being right. It dawned on me that I had not been in that place in more than 10 years. So much water had passed “under the bridge.” We were doing many things, actively engaged in communal family activity; retelling memories both long past and recent, enjoying the moment of shared or special experiences. I caught up with the family. I realized that this gulf of knowledge and experience had existed. Yet even though I was missing all this knowledge and information, I had not felt out of place.

There is this innate need and desire to belong. We need attachment, community and shared experience to belong. More so, we often anchor our identity within our interpersonal connections. This whole family experience I walked through on our trip demonstrated to me that even though I was an “in-law,” I belonged. There are some things I will never know about Juli’s family and some aspects of the family’s relationships I will never be a part of, but I still belonged, essentially adopted into the family.

On the last day of the trip, I began to listen to this song, “Thank God I Do,” by Lauren Daigle. As the dulcet tones of the piano swept over me, my heart moved through that feeling of being lost … and then by the end of the song, “found again.”

Many of you know me by now; music and lyrics speak to my soul without filter or resistance and, if I’m in the right place and the music is the right song, can challenge, enlighten, encourage and work real change in me. I was in the right place, and for me at that point, that was the right song.

The words of “lost” and “hard year” hit me. Simple words … but they immediately reached into my heart and that “out of place” feeling rolled over me with a profound sense of emptiness. In the middle of family, I felt empty for brief moments because I recognized the loss in me. Rapidly, our family grief, and, perhaps more so, the corporate grief I had experienced with so many of my friends and co-workers over the past three years of medical hell seemed to hit all at once.

Those in similar circumstances often speak of waves of grief; I was briefly roiled by those words, momentarily lost in a deep hole. The first step in working through grief and depression is the acknowledgement that those emotions reside within you. I don’t want to blame some nebulous emotions on my actions, but these emotions come from buried hurt and loss. But what hit me in that short moment as that song played revealed to me those mornings waking up feeling out of place was my soul crying out to belong again — to release this heaviness and pain that resides within.

I have to acknowledge those emotions still exist, and that I need to be, have to be carried by a greater force than I can muster. I have to start breathing again, no longer holding my breath. There is someone, and there are “someones” who care enough about you to help carry your load. Immediately, my heart and spirit reached out to the Holy Spirit, recognizing that He who is greater than I is holding me together and carrying me through this, and that He will never let me go.

There was also a wave of understanding that not only was He there, but that He had planted me in a family who was also interdependent with me and that together we would not fall off the edge. I have people I love (Thank you Juli and kids!) and other family, friends and even co-workers who care for me even when it seems like I can’t breathe.

“I don’t know who I’d be if I didn’t know you.” You are my home; I belong to you. I am Home.

If any of this resonates with you, I ask you to take a moment. Find your faith and find your home.

Listening Library: “Thank God I Do” (Lauren Daigle)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoEr8BSsrxg

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” Ephesians 1:3-6 (NIV)

Thank God I Do

I've seen love come and I’ve seen love walk away

So many questions will anybody stay?

It's been a hard year, so many nights in tears

All of the darkness, trying to fight my fears alone ... so long, alone

I don't know who I’d be if I didn't know you

I'd probably fall off the edge

I don't know where I'd go if you ever let go

So keep me held in your hands

I've started breathing

The weight is lifted

You, with you It's easy

My head is finally clear

There's nothing missing when you are by my side

I took the long road but now I realize ... I'm home with you, I'm homе

I don't know who I’d be if I didn't know you

I'd probably fall off the edgе

I don't know where I’d go if you ever let go

So keep me held in your hands

I don't know who I’d be if I didn't know you

I'd probably fall of the edge

I don't know where I’d go if you ever let go

So keep me held in your hands

You're my safe place

My hideaway

You're my anchor

My saving grace

You're my constant

My steadiness

You're my shelter

My oxygen

I don't know who I’d be if I didn't know you

Thank God I Do

I don't know who I’d be if I didn't know you

I'd probably fall off the edge

I don't know where I’d go if you ever let go

So keep me held in your hands

I don't know who I’d be if I didn't know you

Thank God I do

Songwriters: Alecia Moore, Jason Ingram, Jeff Bhasker, Lauren Daigle, Nate Ruess © Centricity Music