It’s been 8 weeks.
Lincoln. Chicago. Atlanta. Amsterdam. Tübingen. Lincoln. Denver. Boise. Portland. Corvallis. Salem. Seattle. Sweet Home. Portland.
Never more than a few days at each place, everywhere is my home and nowhere is my home. I am homeless. I am wandering.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this wandering is not without purpose. I uprooted my life in Illinois eight weeks ago in order to join God on His mission. In the meantime, I have had such rich experiences of Church, Hospitality, and Community. The Bride of Christ is strong and loving and all across the world. She is faithful to care for the wanderers that land on her doorsteps. I am discovering this in a deeper way than I have ever known.
However, as I sit in another coffee shop off of Broadway in Portland, Oregon, I can’t help but long for the sort of stability that comes with having a home to go back to after all of the travels. Many have been gracious in offering places to lay my head, but it is different from having a home, from having a place to put down roots.
That is part of what saying yes to this adventure to Germany means for me: I don’t get to have roots for a while. And it hurts sometimes. And it is beautiful sometimes. We could focus on the hurt or we could focus on the beauty. There’s some choice in this. So, let’s choose beauty.
It is beautiful to get to belong to everyone. It is beautiful to learn to worship with whatever Christians I come across. It is beautiful to serve in fullness everywhere. If nowhere is my home, then everywhere is my home, and so I can give myself fully to whatever expression of the Gospel I come across, and that is beautiful.
So we look to the beautiful and glory in it together as I figure out how to be homeless well.
Wandering Hopefully,
Tony