An RV, a yurt, a moldy house, a tree house... and our eternal home.

(May 2015 excerpts from my journal, with some additional thoughts.)

My husband and I have been married for two years.  In those two years of marriage, we and our little family have moved six times.  (Depending on your definition of a "move...")

This "always in limbo, never settled" living situation has so many Heavenly parallels for the believer.  It feels familiar to me, because it is... As Christians we are, as the Bible has put it, sojourners; strangers in a strange land;  aliens.  Joey and I have not really had a place to call our own, yet.

And that's good.  I so love this very tangible, present reminder that these are the true circumstances of every believer:  Not home yet.  Not settled yet.  Not fully at peace or at home.  Only on the journey.

Our little family doesn't have "a place" for our belongings, really.  They're strewn, hither and yon, between different locations.  One place is the small house originally on our property... the one we intended to fix up before discovering that its foundation was completely shot, among other  issues that would have made it a financial black hole to invest in.  It was foreclosed due to severe mold issues (so we call it our "moldy house" to differentiate it from our tree house, our RV, "our" Neenah winter residence, and our future abode).

People involved in a realty scam broke into it twice after we bought the property but before we moved onto it.

All of that strikes a chord, as I am reminded of Matthew 6:19:
"Do not collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal."

Sometimes we chuckle to ourselves, amused that the majority of our belongings actually consist of the building materials collected for our eventual home.  And I'm reminded of another parallel.
"Collect for yourselves treasures in Heaven..."

What treasures do we have?  We have lots of convenient things.  A few sentimental things.  But if we lost everything in one big fire, I can't say I would be particularly sad to see most of it go.  I am glad for that.  That's not to say I don't truly appreciate our material belongings, but I like to think my heart isn't tied to them.  I think it's healthy to feel that way.  God's gracious hand has seen to it that the things I treasure most, in which I have thus far invested the greatest percentage of my life, are all things I get to "take with me" when I die.

Not having grown up with "treasures," at least not the way this world defines them (materialistically), I didn't develop a taste for them.  It can make me feel awkward and out of sync with humanity at times.  Sometimes I feel as if I have nothing to contribute to certain conversations.  (I've actually caught myself chiming in to complain about things I really don't mind at all, just for the sake of solidarity or fitting in, probably. I know: it's easy to recognize as completely stupid when I say it out loud.)  But, really, when I think about it, I should be alright with not caring about "things" or not always being able to engage in lively conversation about them very well.
"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

I want my Savior Himself to always, always be my treasure and my heart.  Not just mostly.  Not just a little more than the other things in my life, like my husband and my children.  I want Him to be very clearly the greatest and highest of anything I value.

A pastor once told me directly that it is foolish to talk about aching for Heaven or about just wanting to be with Jesus.  His reasoning?  Because Jesus gave us this world to enjoy, after all.

I can see the train of thought there.  But I also read my Bible.  And up against the perspective it offers, I see how teeny tiny, short, and insignificant all of human history will be in comparison to forever.  How much tinier, then, is my one life on the grand scale of eternity?!

Tell me something:  Why should I spend all of my time, energy, emotions, and resources garnering the applause of this world-- making myself successful or liked in the eyes of people, whose days are numbered, rather than making myself successful and faithful in the eyes of Jesus?  He's the One I will stand before one day, yearning to hear the words, "Well done......"

You might be proud of yourself for your credentials, your career, your life experiences, your "been theres..."  And I fully understand that temptation myself.  Right there with you.  Maybe you're a "do-gooder."  Maybe your life is wrapped up in public "ministry."  Maybe you consider yourself an intellectual.  Maybe you know everything there is to know about anything.  Maybe you're frankly just the most epic person in your circle of friends.  :P  Let's say you're a brain surgeon, a celebrity, a professional athlete, a United States ambassador, a military academy graduate, or an FBI agent.  [*insert your most-admired profession here*]

Cool.  But this earth and the entire system that gave you those experiences is going to burn.

What really matters?

You and I would be fools and borderline mental to treat this life like it's the one that matters most.  The only actions that matter in this life are the ones which have ramifications in eternity.

(And, no: In eternity, it's not going to matter that your husband made you late for church or that the kids spilled milk on the couch.  But how your heart responded in those circumstances will matter.)

It can be tempting to look back on one's life and think of how much more successful you could have been, or how much more "fulfilling" your life would be, had you made different decisions.  Certainly I was no exception.  Years back, when most of my friends were either in the military or well on their way to a four-year degree, I frequently thought of the opportunity I had to attend the Air Force Academy. I second-guessed the decisions I made regarding many other prestigious doors that had swung wide open to me.  Then Jesus altered my perspective.

And that's what makes all the difference in life.  He always does that when He touches a person's heart.  That's the turning point in so many events recorded all over the Bible, isn't it?  "...But God....."  Suddenly, a non-accredited Bible college with an emphasis on world missions and classes solely on the Word of God looked to me like one of the smartest investments possible.

Let me put it another way: I've heard people regret having married so young-- that they could have pursued their talents, had they put off starting a family.  Wives are bitter about their husbands "holding them back" from developing a career of their own, or parents lament their child having a medical condition that prevents them from ever following their dreams.  I've had my own relatives downplay to my face God's emphasis on taking the Gospel to other countries, because it simply didn't hold the same value as the comforts of home that they chose to pursue in life.

If you believe this life is all there is and all that matters, it makes sense to think that way.  If you genuinely believe God and what He says about eternity, it absolutely does not.

Are we living in light of eternity, today?  Do we do the simple, daily things for the glory of God?  Or have we "settled" into the short ride of this life, Church?

I am cherishing this "unsettled" feeling.  All my life, and especially as of late, I am constantly reminding myself, "This is just a small taste of how it feels to live free.  Live with a focus on Jesus and Heaven.  This is good.  Stay unattached to the things of this world, my soul.  Be forever clinging tightly to those things which will last: Jesus, His Word, and the eternal state of people's hearts."

I love traveling and living out of a suitcase... always have.  What we have now, however, is neither settled nor travel.  Isn't that what the Christian life looks like, too, though?  Sinking very shallow roots, living only temporarily, in circumstances that we know are not as ideal as they will be one day?

When the early church was persecuted and scattered, Peter addressed his letter to them this way:  "To the temporary residents of the Dispersion."  I love that.

Later, he essentially says, "If you call yourself a Christian, act like one."  But he puts it this way:  "If you address as Father the One who judges impartially based on each one's work, you are to conduct yourselves in reverence during this time of temporary residence." 

Isn't that exactly what a Christian is... a temporary resident?  Temporariness is all over the Bible.

Oh, this bittersweet tension between the already and the not yet!  Yes, we do have a house.  No, we cannot live there right now.  But we sure spend a lot of time and energy preparing to live there, and thinking about what life there will look like.

To be clear, I have absolutely loved living in this RV over the past couple of years.  In many ways, I will will miss it dearly.  But on "rougher" days when it's raining and my toddler has a 2-foot by 8-foot space to run around in, or I could really use a washing machine here, or I run out of gas for our camp stove in the middle of cooking (when we're having other people over for dinner), or I'm making instant rice in a coffee pot (hey, it works!), or a shower seems like paradise itself-- I remember many things.

One thing I think about is that we truly live in luxury compared to a huge part of the world.  Another is that I grew up under much more simple conditions, and it was good.  Yet another is this: the reality of what will be.  There will be a crib in that new house, for sleeping babies.  There will be the fire, and a couch, where Joey and I can curl up together at the end of a long day and be us.

Do we all do that, Heavenly-speaking?  When this life becomes difficult, do we always derive endurance and joy from looking to and really thinking about Jesus coming back and our forever-future?  Do we remind ourselves that we truly have a hope that most in this world do not have?  Do we remember that this is not nearly "as bad as it gets?"  Do we dwell on how unfathomingly beautiful eternity with Jesus will be?

Just ask my husband, who has had to expend a mind-numbing amount of thought and an exhausting amount of work on this project, and he'll tell you that this whole yurt-house-building saga has been proof that it is possible for your mind, energy, and focus to be wrapped up in someplace you don't even live.  (It's a fact that we've lamented because we want to be so much more eternally-minded, but it's a fact nonetheless.)  So let's do that with our someday-home, people.

That's how Paul says to weather this life.  In 1 Thessalonians 4 he describes Jesus' second-coming and how we will all be together with the Lord, and he concludes this way: "Therefore encourage one another with these words."  These words... Not words about how we should actually really be loving this life; not words which give a false hope that things here will get better.  This beautiful picture of what is coming... That is where we are to find encouragement.

People who consistently live with Heaven in view do not get bent out of shape by the little, circumstantial things.  They do not freak out when plans change and things go wrong.  People who take hard times in stride because they know hard times do not damage the sureness of their future... those people exude hope.  And hope is something for which this world is desperately searching.

Yes, I am cherishing this unsettled feeling and the reminder that it brings.  I am cherishing the sehnsucht... cherishing the longing.

But when we have our own "home," it still will not be home.  Our brand new abode, in all spiritual reality, will not be home any more than the moldy house or the RV could be considered "home" right now.

Always, always, always, I want to remember that.

"All I know is, I'm not home yet.
This is not where I belong."

Thoughts on the twenty-one who wear white robes.

"Let me tell you about the Christians of Egypt."

That's what I wanted to write about and reflect upon; to encourage and inspire my fellow believers with what I have seen in action, because it is more real than we comprehend when we only see it in the news.  I lived in Egypt for a significant period of time.  It was my privilege to sit in their churches, share in their communion, walk their streets, live their life, call it mine, and be called "Egyptian" by my brothers and sisters.  For so many reasons, I want to brag on the reality of the faith of the Christians there.  We could learn much from their example and have our perspective greatly improved by it.  It is very different from anything you may have ever seen.

But it will have to wait.  Right now, I am overcome with too many other thoughts.  So here they are, just thinking out loud, raw and open.

I am full of heartache.

Twenty-one Egyptians went to Libya simply to make a living.  Twenty-one seemingly common men.  Kidnapped by Jihadists, slaughtered to send a message to the rest of the Egyptian Coptic Church ("the nation of the cross") and the world.

I am full of heartache because these were sons, husbands, fathers... their heads severed on video; the water and the shore turned red with their blood.  They will never in this life see their families again.  They left young wives, children, and parents who will have to do life now without them.  It's heart-rending.  Grief unspeakable.

I am overflowing with joy and with love.

I am overflowing because the testimony left by the parents and wives of these men is bullet-proof.  The forgiveness they have shown toward the killers of their loved ones... the sheer joy they have exuded over the knowledge that Heaven is their new home... even the pride about the fact that all these men from their village were strong until the end and died for Jesus... It makes no sense because it is Christlike.  It is other-worldly.  It is Heavenly.

"And they overcame him [Satan] because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives even when faced with death."  (Rev 12:11)

"These [men] insisted to remain in unbelief," read the caption on the video.  Every one of these men had the chance to convert rather than die, and every one of them chose to die rather than dishonor their Savior.  Even with knives at their throats, they called out to the Lord Jesus who they knew they would be meeting soon.

I am overflowing.  There is hardly anything so sweet as pure faith in Jesus.  "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." (Psalm 115:16)

I am angry.

I am angry because while twenty-one precious believers were forced to the sand, their heads sawed off brutally with knives, all America could talk about was Fifty Shades of Grey.  Fifty Shades.  Of freaking.  Grey.  A movie that glorifies and celebrates violence, abuse, and rape.  A movie whose leading actors admit to hating themselves for even acting it out.  I want to tear my hair out by the roots.  My heart is sick.  So is my stomach.  Because all the body of Christ can do is argue about how the the worst thing you could possibly do is to be "judgy" about the movie.  All Christians can do is point the finger back at their brothers and sisters and say, "We have enough of our own problems!  How dare you get angry about this movie."  And that's just the Christians who aren't going to see the movie themselves.

Let me tell you something, American Christians.  Egyptian Christians would be shocked out of their minds to know that this movie does not anger you.  To know that too many of you would even consider seeing it.  In my mind's eye I can vividly see the faces of my close friends there... the blood draining from their mortified faces.  Confused.  Unable to believe that anyone claiming to follow Jesus could in any way justify not being outraged over such things.  They would be embarrassed even to talk about it.

I am angry because of the continual, unbelievable lies spewed and spread by our government.  The statement issued by the White House did not acknowledge that the victims were Christians.  The White House will not even use the term "radical Islam" because including Islam at all "would not be accurate."  Apparently, we may call it "terrorism," but it is terrorism that the leader of the free world says is "randomly" perpetrated.  People in that part of the world think he's a joke-- that he's either extremely ignorant, or a total liar.

Don't you dare tell us that this has nothing to do with religion when these Jihadists state, with every beheading, that they kill for the sake of Allah.  And don't you dare try to cover up the fact that this is persecution in its most obvious form.  The video was addressed to Egyptian Copts.  It was titled, "A Message Signed With Blood To The Nation of The Cross."  But, according to our government, it has nothing to do with targeting Christians.

This is absolutely nothing new.  But it is still disgusting.  The Church is called to endure persecution.  The government is called to end injustice.  God will hold every man accountable.

I am angry and concerned not only about the carnality and the easily-excused sin issues in our Western churches, but also about the sheer banality with which we seem to be so contented.  We spend morbid amounts of time on entertainment, alarming amounts of money on stuff we don't truly need, and a mortifying amount of energy making ourselves more happy and comfortable.  I'm angry about the status quo with which we are so comfortable.  How very wrapped up we are in mind-numbingly pointless discussions... activities... movies... humor... pastimes... celebrities... gossip... things that in the end of all things and in eternity simply. don't. matter.

It angers me that we throw around the term, "persecuted," and don't really understand it; that we all pay attention to the "big" incidents like this-- "wake-up calls," we call them-- but in between times, we forget all about the fact that our brothers and sisters are suffering around the world on a daily basis.  This is not some grand wake-up call, Christians.  Things like this, and far worse, have been happening ever since Lucifer pitted himself against God.  All throughout human history.  We may not be living through them in this particular country at this particular time, but we are utterly surrounded by such things.

Here's a question for us to ponder:  "What if it was me?"  What if it was my husband who was slaughtered on the southern shore of the Mediterranean?  What if my little boy's life was threatened before my eyes in an attempt to get me to deny my Savior?  I feel like we always read these stories about persecution and react with, "That's so sad!"  And we follow it up with, "I could never..." or, "I know I'd never have the courage..."  Why do we react like that?  Here's another question, if you find yourself thinking that way:  "What in my life needs to change?"  Why am I not at that place where I love Jesus so much and know Him so well that I would be certain of Heaven with a knife at my throat?  Why is my heart not so full of His forgiveness that I could extend that forgiveness to another?

It angers and saddens me that if the the time we spent with our fellow believers was truly "fellowship," few would actually enjoy it.  That if, when having other Christians over for dinner, we spent most of the evening in prayer, singing, worship, or actual edification, it would come off as weird.  Awkward.  Definitely unconventional.  Not a time of great joy and happiness and praising God-- the one thing that we would claim brings us together.  I promise you that the reason Jesus was on the lips of these twenty-one saints as their throats were slit is because they knew Him.  They loved Him; they lived for Him.  He was and is their Life.  He was real to them both in their quiet times and when gathered with their friends.  I miss that about the church in Egypt; miss living with my Christian friends and Jesus being so central.  I miss it with every beat of my heart.

I am full to the brim with hope.

I am hopeful, not in the way we commonly think of "hoping" as if it were a wish... not as when we say that "hopefully" something will happen.  I'm hopeful in the way that the epistles describe "our hope"-- certainty.  Complete and utter certainty about what is to come.

I am hopeful when I read the Book of Revelation.  I absolutely love that book.  I could read it every day and derive endless bounds of joy and hope and purpose because it gives us the big-picture perspective of the eternal.  We KNOW, people.  Unlike anyone who does not have our hope, we know what happens in the end!  Nothing should be a surprise to us in the meantime.  Things gets confusing and shocking when we start looking through our tiny, everyday-perspective lens too much.  There is nothing that is not going according to the overall, eternal plan.  God is not confused or shocked.

I am hopeful because torture and physical death cannot kill the soul.  It cannot kill love.  It cannot kill faith.  It cannot kill the resolve of Jesus followers-- it never has, and it never will.  Death, and all of Satan's armies, cannot kill the absolute certainty of God's cosmic plan for the ages and the fact that it will be accomplished.  It is irrevocably written into the story of the ages that Satan will be destroyed in the most majestic and epic war story of all time.  For now there is suffering, but never forget this:  Satan and all the enemies of God are going down in an event that will  be so much more than apocalyptic.

I am hopeful because even as Christians are killed, even as the Gospel is perverted, even as false teachers rise up and deceive millions, even though many who think they are Christians are not and successfully lead others astray... even as Satan is given reign over this world for a time, God is not mocked.  The Gospel is still going out, and people are still being saved.  His people are still His and He knows who they are.

Amid the tears, agony, injustice, and grief, there is joy, redemption, beauty, and a whole lot of hope.  There is still much to be done before Jesus' return, and it is only God's mercy and patience that allow more time for anyone who will believe to believe in Him and become a child of His.

Christians, we are all given different gifts and roles in life, but we all share the same purpose.  Let us stay connected closely to our Life source, fight the good fight, finish the race, and keep the faith.  Let us live every day to hear the sweetest words we could ever hear from our Father:  "Well done, good and faithful servant."

"The fields are white  unto harvest."

"Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"