As I drove home tonight, the world was quiet. It was dark and cold and crisp. George Strait played softly on the radio, and the heater hummed happily. The brake light glared red at me, the one that never shuts off in the Ford Tempo. I smoked the last cigarette from the pack I had bought a month ago.
My mind was tired from thinking of the past, my heart stirred with memory. My home had become a crazy house overnight. People slept in every room, schoolbooks and video games were strewn hither and yon, the smell of Mom and Grandma’s cooking filled the house, and the bathroom was always occupied. I thought grimly that at least I would only have to put up with the chaos for another week.
That was a strange thought. I would miss the farm, as much as I tried to squelch the emotion of leaving. But my home wasn't what it used to be.
I had always liked the cold. Maybe it was because it made you appreciate warmth. In the farmhouse, upstairs was probably a whopping 12 degrees. I'd stand by the fire and soak up as much heat as my body could hold, then sprint for bed, hoping hypothermia wouldn't catch me in-between. And anyone who's ever complained about getting up in the morning should've experienced a winter's morn in the Reams' house. Laying there contemplating getting up to go feed the cows, I felt like Bilbo Baggins leaving the warmth and safety of Bag End to go to his probably death. Dangerous? Clearly. Life-threatening? Definitely. They made long underwear for people like us.
Winter in the Valley was a thing of its own. It was not warm and calm, but neither was it a glorious blanket of white. We succumbed to around eight months of cold, miserable constant rain and somehow, we rather liked it. The Old Barn was a beautiful, romantic place any other time of the year. In the winter, it was dark and haunted. Feeding the cows was a mad dash of fear that never took more than thirty seconds. The house was a haven of warmth and love. When we first moved into the old house in 1994, the winter came upon us rather quickly. The toilet seat cracked clean in half. To this day, I still remember putting down a few blankets by the fire and falling asleep to the slow warmth.
In the summers, Chad and Chase would come over every day. We made smoothies out of blackberries and vanilla ice cream and swam in the Luckiamute until it got too cold to stand. We had a mascot, a stuffed polar bear named Fred or something like that, who we'd throw in the water and expect to swim. We played War for hours in the barn and the six different forts we had created around the fields and the river. Chad and I were always on the same team and always won, because we were the oldest. Chad was my first crush in the second grade. I baked him a chocolate cake. I don't even think he knew what a girl was at that point, but he did eat the entire cake.
We bought a horse in 2005 and I named him Indio. He was a snarky Appaloosa with a nasty habit of running under trees when you rode him. He took it upon himself to shepherd and protect our herd of cows. He and Penny the cow became best friends and never were without each other. We often put a saddle on him and rode him around the countryside, and sometimes we rode him bareback and pretended we were Indians. He put up with it rather well, even if he did have a condescending air about him. That is, as far as horses can be condescending.
The dogs sit with me by the fire as I remember those days. They smell of rain and moldy straw. Doc is old now, and so deaf you have to scream to get his attention. Indio is gone. Chad is in Georgia now. He's happy there. Once in a while I'll give him a call, and we'll just talk. Once you've shot someone with a BB gun, I guess that makes you best friends forever.
The day draws ever nearer when I will say goodbye to the old farmhouse. It is strange and sad and a little bewildering, for I really have not known anything else. The house was always a place for people who had never had a home. The lost, the broken, the people who needed to eat. Mom would never shut her door to anyone, nor withhold her affection. It was a place where you could rest, a place where you felt like you belonged. Granted, it was hardly ever clean and never normal, but it was full of love.
But it’s changed, or maybe I have. I can’t hold onto this place, waiting for the past to somehow resurrect itself and come back. I must go on; I must live and love and breathe and move. The old house will continue to be a home for many, but I must go on to find a home of my own.
As I sit here in the quiet, I am for a moment discomforted in my soul, for I wonder if I will ever find a home, a place where I can rest and play and eat milkshakes. A place to laugh and sleep, to be free to be completely me. If it is not here, then where shall I find it?
And then He whispers to me ever-so-gently that my home is in His heart. He is in my heart, as I rest in His. He lives in me. He walks with me, no matter where I should go. My home will not be shaken and will never change. I am always a child with Him, and the wars of my life seem like play in His place of peace. And maybe as I rest in Him, the lost and broken can find their home in Him too.
And I'm truly thankful, Lord Jesus, for that.
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