Center of the Compass

I learned a long, long time ago on a primary school playground that the phrases people teach you to deal with life aren't always true.  I remember being told:

Sticks and stones 
May break your bones
But words will never hurt you

It's not true, words can hurt immensely more than a broken finger or wrist.  And I'm finding myself putting the same skeptical wisdom to the adage:  Home is where the heart is.  I'm sure I can eventually make that true, but I'm finding it extremely difficult at the moment because I simply feel lost.

So I write.

I feel quiet.

So I write.

I feel frustrated at some unknown and unnamed dark shadow lurking in the corners.

So I write.

This blog is simply me trying to work through something.  Me trying to put the world right again after the storms of life.  Sometimes I feel like my life, my heart more accurately, looks like those pictures of natural disaster devastation where a woman in her bathrobe is picking through her flattened house trying to find something familiar, something important.  Nothing seems to be where I left it.  No relationship has been untouched by the last 10 years of life.

And so... I write.

I write uncensored and from my bones.  I used to write to deal with little things, small frustrations and a bit of perspective.  Those writings had lots of pictures.  These days, I find there are fewer pictures, more tears.  I'm not writing out to anyone in particular.  I'm writing to my own heart, my own reflection, as if this blog was turned into a representative mirror so I can see myself clearly.  I need to get these things out, but I'm not saying that to anything or about anyone in particular.  It is often true that something will happen to spark a thought that takes me down a rabbit trail.  A conversation.  A song.  A poem.  A play.  It's me processing, sometimes things I've been holding on to for years.  Todd doesn't understand how it can take me days, weeks, or years to deal with things.  I'm slow like that.  I don't forget, I'm not vindictively holding on to things to be later used as ammunition against someone.  I just simply am slow to process, slow to excite, slow to action because... it works for me.  I'm trying rather desperately in each piece to be at peace in my own skin, at home in my own heart.

Home is not simply a mark on a map anymore than a river is just water.  It is the place at the center of the compass from which every arrow radiates and where the heart is fixed.  It is a force that forever draws us back or lures us on.  For where the home is, there lies hope and the future waits and everything is possible. 

         -Call the Midwife (Season 2, Episode 7)

I'm searching for the very center of my compass.  That point from which everything, every other interaction can be drawn back to.  I was looking before we went to Africa.  I'll be looking long after I've moved into a home in the U.S. because I think that the pursuit of that one truth that holds all together will be the journey of my life... the adventurous story of me.  I know some may try to flippantly and casually say that the fixed point is Jesus Christ.  I think that's true but I'm not talking about knowing in my head the Truth of my Savior.  I'm seeking to find Him and how He works and moves in my life through each interaction, each conversation, each book I read.  Because as long as I keep pursuing, keep processing, keep seeking, I'll keep finding... and each discovery is such a wonderful love song to my soul, such an anointing oil to my spirit that I can't just sit back and live like I  can be satisfied to simply know.  I need to feel, in my marrow and down to my toes that Christ is the center of my compass... that He's my heart...  that He really is my home.