Comments on Growing Is Beautiful: If You're Looking For A Home

@Ma...

2012-01-04T16:06:25.173-08:00

@MamaGriffith,: Thank you, Friend! I snapped this photo at a local nursery over the holidays. All the tiny angles of the ornament reflected the light so perfectly. I don't have a huge stock of photos that say "Christmas!" so I was happy to get this one.

I love your pictures. That one captures Christmas!...

2012-01-04T09:50:49.589-08:00

I love your pictures. That one captures Christmas!

@chr...

2011-12-31T11:56:03.111-08:00

@chris: I don't even know how to begin! You've given me so much good stuff here, Chris, and I am still processing some of it.

I love how you've identified the "richness" I wrote about and yet I'm not even sure I really grasped that part of what I was writing at the time. God is like that with me, letting me write things I'll understand only after I've read them again later.

And "the lover wants to be at home in the beloved, as well as being a home for the beloved"? Such a beautiful truth, one that I am hoping God will really open up to me in the months to come.

And I think you've really hit on the struggle of all this...to be at home here and now in Christ and yet still be a pilgrim on the way to the Home of All Homes.

Well, I could go on, but let me just sum it up by saying thank you for pouring out insight here--I will be processing much of it in the days and weeks to come and writing more as God leads.

And to be "graced" in the new year? Yes! I pray the same for you, Friend.

@ti...

2011-12-31T11:47:59.136-08:00

@tinuviel: Yes, dear friend! Never left out of anything, never out of place. He is in you and you are in Him--as Chris has so eloquently described below--so you are always right in the thick of it :o). May we both learn to really live this in the new year. Sending grace straight back at you!

hi Courtney, i love the way you bring out the ric...

2011-12-30T03:48:51.724-08:00

hi Courtney,

i love the way you bring out the richness of the God/Home theme! Because God is Love, He is (now and always) our Home. but also, because God is Love, and the lover wants to be at home in the beloved, as well as being a home for the beloved, He is transforming us into *His* home, so that He is at home in us, and not just the other way around.

we're already--in some measure--God's home, or at least God's home-under-construction (with the foundations and cornerstone already in place). but in another sense we're not yet God's home--we're being "built together *to become* a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit."
in the same way, as you bring out, there's a way in which we're already at home in God. and there's also a sense in which we aren't yet, and God invites us to make ourselves at home in Him. in one way we are home, and in another way we're still pilgrims, since we're on a journey toward really and completely living in Him.

the idea that we are in one way already at home, and in another pilgrims on our way home, made be think of a line from a T. S. Elliot poem ("Little Gidding") that I resonate to:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

so glad you're eagerly anticipating the new year, and praying that in it you'll be graced beyond all your anticipations--

chris

"God is Home. And in Him, I am always--alway...

2011-12-29T14:47:33.940-08:00

"God is Home. And in Him, I am always--always--at home." Yes! I appreciate the interaction with Cynthia above, too. Never left out of anything in Him. I needed that today. Thanks and grace to you both.

@Cy...

2011-12-29T14:32:55.178-08:00

@CynthiaJSwenson: Yes! God is your Home, wherever you are. Although I don't know what it is like to be a caregiver as you do, my illness has certainly taught me a bit about feeling "shut in" at home and "shut out" of life. But God really is making us into a home and we've no need to feel left out or alone or as if we don't belong. We *do* belong. Here. With Him. May He continue to remind you of His nearness in your everyday life. Grace to you, Friend!

Dear Courtney, "God is home!" That's...

2011-12-29T09:36:01.539-08:00

Dear Courtney, "God is home!" That's the most awesome thought I've read this morning! I struggle with being a "shut in" with my special needs son and I have to remind myself that this is what God has called me to. Thank you for reminding me that God lives here (in me!).I am never left out of anything! He is here! Blessings, in Jesus, Cynthia