Five Minute Friday: Home

An apt topic for this weekend's writing, as I've only just returned from a vacation from Parts West, from my hometown. How can I limit it to just five minutes?

Home

Home is where the heart is. If so, my home is with my loved ones. It's with my husband and baby.

Home is familiarity. That city, that state, that region--I spent my formative years there and they are my home as nothing else will be or can be. To be in my culture of origin--Colorado is so different from the South!--and feel at home not like an interloper is good. To smell that smell of pine trees and wind that comes (literally!) from mountaintops to valleys. (I remember Uncle Janis used to say "That's the smell of fresh air!" There's nothing like coming back from Away and smelling that smell again.

Oddly, I found my Mother-in-Law's house to be my home as well. We arrived there after two days on the road and it felt so relaxing to arrive. I felt at home. I dawdled in the shower. I washed clothes. I knew without asking where the laundry pre-treat is and that I was welcome to use it.

And now, in my own house where I've lived for 4 years, I am home. My kitchen. My bedroom. My living room. Here I am housemother, saimniece, hostess. Here is where I cook and clean and live large moments and tiny moments.

Five Minute Friday: On Forgetting

(forgive me: I've been away on vacation for three weeks.)

On Forgetting

I'm a forgetter. I've always been a forgetter. I forgot about Color Days in pre-school. I forgot homework throughout my school years. I've forgotten to pay bills. I've forgotten to deposit paychecks. I've forgotten my husband's birthday (although I had a one-month-old at the time). I forgot the time my baby was born (though I was high on morphine at the time). Like I said, I'm a forgetter.

I've had to learn to discipline myself to take notes and write lists and keep a calendar and keep on with those disciplines. I have to put effort into remembering responsibilities. Learning to lay off myself when I forget something important has been hard, but I've had to do it! Making one mistake, just one, doesn't mean I should quit trying. It's just one mistake. Keep trying! Keep working! Get better! Strive! You can do it!

You know what else I've had to learn to do? I've had to learn to trust the Lord's sovereignty. Is God not sovereign? Is he not sovereign over all things...even memory? I work hard and put strenuous effort into remembering, but if I forget something (usually an item from my grocery list), I can do without or get it later. Usually I remember just in time--and I praise my sovereign Lord for reminding me. I trust him to help me remember when I cannot.