finding home

Have you ever felt like you didn't fit in? Like everything was going well, but there was something missing? Like you weren't really a part of the group? I have felt like that for almost 4 years now. I left a great community of Christians in order to go to a Christian school, because I believed, and still do, that that was what God was calling me to do. I listened, and obeyed, and made friends, but never the kinds of friends that my siblings had made. I never felt like I had actually made the transition from my home growing up, to my new home. I didn't feel like I was at home. That, more than anything else, was what I longed for. I drove home frequently, because at least there, I felt like I could relax, I could be myself. I didn't have to try so dang hard to connect with people. The connections I had with the people at CSUN slowly diminished, and while I still enjoyed going up there to visit, I knew that the community I had left up there was not my community anymore, just like the community at Biola was not my community, nor was the community at home my community. I'm not saying that I was lonely. I had plenty of friends, and people to spend time with. I just didn't feel like I had found a place where I really fit in.

Now, 4 years later, I feel like I'm finding it again. In Burleson Texas, of all places. The community of believers here is something that I have not experienced since I was at CSUN. I don't feel like I have to be different in order to fit in, and for the first time, I'm not afraid to let people I don't know, get close to me. It's a wonderful feeling, this sense of community, and it's one that I don't necessarily want to give up at the end of the summer.

The only problem is, that I'm not sure that God wants me to stay. Both times it has happened, I have felt Him telling me that it's not permanent. I don't get to stay. I am here for growth, and healing, but once that is done, I will need to move on, to move back, probably to Southern California. If that happens, it will be one of the most difficult things I have done, since leaving CSUN for Biola. And it makes me wonder, when do I get to say that I am home?