Hebrews 11 is my favorite singular book of the whole bible - full of hope - and yet unafraid to look death and suffering in the eye. Hebrews 11 acknowledges all that lived in faith - those who received the fruit of great miracles and those who were martyred and died. And Hebrews says that they all looked to a better country. They were strangers and aliens in the land, looking to a city "which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God." In my life so far, none of these earthly cities have had firm foundations.
David and I got married in August 2000 and we have yet to share an address for the entirety of our stay. Nutley, NJ - David leaves in January 2003 to join the Army and I stay in our little one bedroom place until I move to Indiana in September that same year.
West Lafayette - I live in two residences (first with my amazingly hospitable in-laws) and then with my infant twin sons in a basement apartment. David never shares those dwellings as he is in training or deployed the entire 20 months I live there.
Colorado - June 2005, I move in a month before David arrives. Deployed again right after the birth of Bunny, we leave to a house in Lafayette and David goes to war. Again.
Lafayette - My three kids (under 3) and I move in September 2006. David finally returns from Iraq in April 2008.
West Lafayette - We move to our house on Grackle in October 2013. Nathan and I move to Evansville June 2019.
Evansville apartment - Nathan and I have been living in the apartment 7.5 months before David and AJ join us in February 2020. Bunny will never know this space as her home.
Evansville house - expected move date - May 27 - expected date to be reunited with Bunny - TBD - maybe December 2020, maybe later.
Maybe David and I will live in this Evansville home the same length of time. That would be a first, despite our marriage of 20 years this year. Twenty years of sharing a life and never once has our address contained all of our immediate family under the roof for the same length of time. It's not how most people picture home.
But that's why I love Hebrews 11 so much. Life doesn't have to look "right" or "normal" to be good and faithful and full of promise. We are all sojourners in this land, even if you live your whole life in the same town.
Easter Sunday - the resurrection - isn't about Jesus rising from the dead and staying on earth. He goes to that city - whose builder is God. If my hope was in normalcy, I would have succumbed to despair a long time ago. If I thought that the promise of "a future and a hope" was for this lifetime...I'd have no faith at all. Easter doesn't just say that the cross and the grave are empty - it means everything in this mortal frame has a degree of emptiness - a feeling that we are strangers - a longing for eternity.
And so like Abram, we set out into whatever is next, not knowing were we are going. We journey on, not hoping that this NEXT thing is THE thing we have been longing for - but seeing that God is faithful and good and full of promise along our way to the FINAL thing.
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