Homeless-- Living out of bags

It happened gradually. I left my parents house for a dorm that I made has homey as possible. Then I made an apartment as cozy as I could with some friends. Soon I left my apartment and moved into my first home with my husband. I naturally became a homemaker even with a fulltime job. I love making a place a home.

I brought all my babies into that first home, which I nested in for almost a decade. After that, we felt a call to leave that home, so we rented a house not far away for a couple of years. Even though it wasn't ours, we brought all our things to make it feel just like our own home. Finally, we sold almost everything we had to make a home on wheels, which like every other place, I tried to make as homey as possible. Before long, an RV became a place of rest. It was our home.

But now, we feel another call, and it's hitting me a little upside the head. We are leaving our home again, even with it's uncomfortable wheels. We plan to move around like nomads, resting in already decorated homes...other people's homes. We won't be able to bring knickknacks (even though we don't have many). We won't be able to bring our own furniture (even though we don't have that either). We might not even bring our own pillows. We'll let it all go in order to find that we never really owned any of it. Even if the mortgage is paid, it would never be ours.

It's so easy to slip into the mindset of ownership when you've put all the effort and cost into maintaining a place. When you decorate or dedicate spaces for any amount of time, they become yours. The place where you can rest easy, where you can sigh in relief. You can kick of your shoes or track in mud. You can be yourself, let your guard down and bare all without fear or repercussion. You don't have to worry about breaking anything because it's yours. You don't have to worry what the owners will think, because you own it. You don't have to walk on eggshells with neighbors, because you pay the bills. Home is suppose to be a place of peace. A place where after all the holiday travel or long work weeks, you can say, "It's good to be home."

This begs the question: is it possible to live without a home and still have peace? This is our hope. This is our prayer-- that we will be comfortable in the uncomfortable space of homelessness. It's not wrong to create spaces of restful comfort, but I realized without such a space of our own, we may finally be able to comprehend that none of it was ours to begin with. We may be able to dwell anywhere and feel at peace knowing God dwells in us.

We don't have to put on a veil and cover up who we really are as we enter someone else's space. We can take off the veils for good and sigh with relief in every home because: "Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." (2 Corinthians 3:16-17) I pray we have freedom in the coming months while traveling outside the comforts of our own home. The Lord has been preparing a place for me since He rose, so even though I may still try to make spaces homey, I know He is making the homiest place of all. We are just too nearsighted to trust in such an idyllic future home.

We want to own our spaces here and now, but we must put more effort into owning the home God is making in heaven. Then we can be at peace everywhere. We will recognize the blessing of our earthly poverty. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3). I pray that if we do have a home of our own one day, we will never call it ours. We will keep it open to all who heed the call to go and wander with the hope of Heaven. We will remain free to give it all up at any point because it's all God's.

~Carefully & Carelessly Homeless