AT LAST?

AT LAST?


‘There’s no place like home’. That’s probably true for some. When I consider my childhood, I remember not that ‘Home is where the heart is’, but ‘Home is where your stuff is’. See, I am a preacher’s kid, or at least I was. For those unfamiliar with the profession, being a child of a pastor, depending upon his ministry or denomination, sometimes involves a great deal of transition, both physical and, theoretically, spiritual. In plain language, we moved a lot. For at least two of our moves, I was too young to remember. The others-- well, they seemed to all blend into one bigger memory. On the edge of which lies some excitement about the new or bigger house we were moving into, but at the center lay resentment and confusion as to the need for all of this packing and repacking as well as the prospect of once again being ‘the new kid’. Still, amongst all of this upheaval, I somehow managed to feel ‘at home’ in most of these places. I was a quiet, shy kid who was close to his mom, annoyed by his sisters, and generally avoidant of my dad. I felt safe and was thankful that when a teacher asked my class how many of us came from ‘broken homes’, I didn’t have to raise my hand. That was in grade school and junior high. We had moved maybe three or four times by then. I had some good friends; although I preferred to keep only one or two close to me. I liked my ‘routine’ that I had made for myself, the church seemed to be doing well, and I didn’t see any more moving on the horizon. I had the normal adolescent trials: acne, bad hair, and lack of social grace, but for the most part, this was all manageable. Then, high school happened.



“Come out of things unsaid
Shoot an apple off my head
And a trouble that can’t be named
A tiger’s waiting to be tamed”



‘Home sweet home’ slowly ceased to be so sweet around 1990. I was fifteen and had completed, no- survived my freshman year. I don’t recall the exact moment that I knew something was wrong with my parents’ relationship, but it did begin to unravel in strange ways. This dysfunction also manifested itself in our church, too (or vice versa). Whatever was going on, it seemed like a sure mid-life crisis for my dad and for the church. During the next year and a half, things grew more and more strangely disconnected. I have trouble resurrecting an exact timeline of events, but by the time my junior year started, I had moved once again, grew about six inches (although, mercifully, gained no weight), and lost total touch with what my dad was experiencing. He became a ghost in my life- appearing at surreal moments during the day and vanishing nightly from the house we now rented and magically resurfacing the next day without explanation. I either refused to believe his whereabouts or was more afraid of the truth. With my new lanky, can’t-gain-weight-no-matter-what-I-eat body, and with no reason to want to hang out at this house where my room was an unconverted garage, I took to running. It served as a needed distraction from dysfunction and was useful from distancing myself from reality. I ran the hardest and farthest the day my dad announced his plans to permanently vacate our premises. I even knew it was coming; he’d chosen to give me a preview earlier that day for some reason. I still couldn’t cope, and when he officially spilled it at dinner that summer night, I broke for the door. I never really came home either.
I became a transient with a mailing address. Somehow an epiphany of life abroad with the promise of a free education occurred to me that summer, so I joined the Navy with a delayed entry of August the following year (1993). The busyness of senior year seemed to soothe the transition of divorce. Mom was working full-time; I worked part-time and avoided my sisters full-time now that they were attending my school as freshmen. I logged serious hours at my best friend Mike’s house. His family unofficially adopted me, and they continue to bless me today. The town home we rented gradually ceased to feel all that weird, and oddly enough it’s located only a few blocks from the parsonage which had been home for five years.
Graduation happened soon enough, and my final summer vacation began with a camping trip to Canada with the guys and ended with a shorter trip to North Chicago for boot camp. I guess my adjustment to Navy life was eased by my nomadic past. Of the four years I was in uniform, I totaled only 18 months of time in the US. The rest of the time was either spent living overseas or out to sea aboard one of the two ships that I served in. With only a few square feet of personal space, shipboard life disciplined me in the art of essentials-only living. My prized possessions became my regular-guy civilian clothes and a small photo album my first girlfriend gave me. Seeing the world did mature me a great deal, but the constant upheaval of the military lifestyle certainly didn’t settle my desire for a consistent contentment in my heart or a state of peace in my mind.



“Lights go out and I can’t be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
Have brought me down upon my knees
Oh I beg, I beg and plead”



When I was discharged in 1997, I came ‘home’ to a different challenge. My mother had remarried in ’94, and now I was faced with getting to know a new family. My step-dad and his daughter and son were relative strangers to me, yet here I was living in their house. I enrolled in junior college, tried to settle in and- not kill anybody. I found myself being very angry and not really understanding why. This caused serious friction between me and just about everyone I was trying to coexist with, but most of all, it manifested itself with my step-dad. Here, in retrospect, was a wonderful man who had emerged from his own painful divorce, met and married my mother, and who had been unbelievably gracious in accepting my sisters and me into his household. Why did I punish him with my antagonistic behavior? I think I resented his loving example of all the things my own dad had never been to me.
Everyone seemed to have somewhat moved on- except me. I now realize my stint in the Navy had provided me with an escape from the pain of my home-life, but this temporary reprieve it offered actually made everything worse. It was a delayed reaction: as if someone had pressed the pause button on my life’s remote control when I left home after graduation, and now, here with a chance to leave the past in the past, this same someone had cruelly pressed ‘play’ with my emotions. The flood of pain began to flow again as I dealt with all the reasons my dad left which oscillated the blame among me, the church, ‘that other woman’, and of course, dad. I couldn’t seem to handle all of this, and right about the time I had gotten use to the cycle of feeling down about the way my life turned out, getting drunk, sobering, and moving on with my days, it was time for yet another transition.
An air traffic controller job had been something I wanted to pursue since I was a teenager, and this required that I attend some training in Minnesota for 15 weeks. I shared an apartment with three other students and managed to not think about the past for a while. When I returned to my step-dad’s house for the interim basis between graduating from air traffic classes and being hired by the FAA, things were a little better, yet something I couldn’t quite identify was missing in my life. I had had plenty of dates and girlfriends by this time. I was set to have an excellent income very soon. Outwardly, I’m sure appearances would suggest that I had somewhat arrived. But, where? I’m not sure I recognized myself anymore. My new apartment just blocks from my mom didn’t feel like home either.



“I could not stop, that you now know
Singing come out upon my seas
Cursed missed opportunities
Am I part of the cure?
Or am I part of the disease”



I looked for love repeatedly, too. After many miserable attempts at selecting an appropriate companion, I gave up. When I quit looking I found Lisa. I met her at my new job. She had been there about ten years when I started in 2000. The circumstances that brought us together were as painful as the divorce. Her husband had died of cancer. After only seeing her around work and not really knowing her all that well, something inside of me told me that I was to look after and care for her. I thought I knew her story. I didn’t want her to know mine.
We had been dating less than a year when she made a surprising offer. After helping me look for my first house one day, she suggested moving in with her. Maybe this move would provide the stability I needed. One thing I had learned was that too much time spent alone was dangerous for me due to my overactive mind and still-damaged heart. After living there just a few months though, all of my past pain and my present way of dealing with it- my drinking- came to a head.
For all the reasons I admire Lisa, the one that stands out among the rest is her courage. I literally owe her my life for her willingness to pose the not-so-theoretical question, “If you had to choose one day between alcohol and me, what would it be?” She was afraid that I, just as two other men had that she had loved so dearly in life: her first husband and her dad, would someday leave her. They had preceded her in death, and she was fearful that I was next if a major change didn’t occur in my chosen lifestyle. In some ways, maybe a part of me had died. Whatever the case, I had proven I could no longer sustain my previous pace of life, and the wall I had erected to discourage outsiders from trespassing through the landscape of my pain needed to be breached. Who could I allow to see how broken I had become? How would I resurrect hope? Was there a chance I could feel real peace at last? Could anyone- take me home?



“Confusion that never stops
The closing walls and the ticking clocks
Gonna come back and take you home”



On June the twenty-eighth of 2003, on a Sunday afternoon, driving home from work having left early due to a monster hangover (again), I arrived at the four-way stop sign two miles from my Lisa’s house. There in my car, I made a call, but I didn’t use any cell phone. Tears began to stream as I called out to the one I knew was listening. I began to sob as I pleaded with the one that had never really left me alone. I put my hands up as I surrendered control of my spiraling life. I reached out to the only one who knew the way back- to comfort and peace, to real joy and contentment. I offered the reigns of my existence to the one whose love would lead me home again. “Please God, if you’re real, be real to me.” The waves of relief, redemption and release poured over me. “I can’t do this anymore.” “I need you to be in charge of my life.” I can’t describe the warmth that resulted from my abdication. It was as if God had placed his hand on mine and whispered gently, “Welcome back. Let’s go home.”

The last year and a half has passed so quickly. I can’t describe the difference in my life. Lisa is now my wife. My job has gotten so much easier now that I no longer test the limits with my after-hours nightlife. Almost all of my relationships have improved now that alcohol is no longer atop my priority list. Most importantly there is a new relevance to how I spend my days. All of my visions of the future are cast in the light of eternity. I realize there is more to this existence than the here and now. Fleeting pleasures and temporary numbness to pain can no longer satisfy my desire for true significance. The love I receive from God and how I in turn pass it on to others determines my real self-worth.



“And nothing else compares
You are, you are
Home, home, where I wanted to go
Home, home, where I wanted to go (you are)”



Os Guinness once wrote, “A Christian is someone who in this life is always on the road as ‘a follower of Christ’ and a follower of ‘The Way’.” That’s true: our lasting home is in heaven with our Savior. But, while I am here, while I can’t yet see my Lord, I know that no matter where I go, He’s there- in my heart, and I always have that with me. As Christians, we are citizens of heaven, not yet arrived. We have a personal relationship with the best guide there is, though. He’s made it our responsibility to show others the way back to the house. We may never feel completely comfortable on this earth. That’s O.K. We have a family of other believers. As Zach Braff wrote, “Maybe that’s all a family really is; a group of people who miss the same . . . place.”





P.S. Lisa and I recently bought a new house together, and you know what? It’s starting to feel like home.







(Lyrics: “Clocks” by Coldplay)