College / Updates, God 
1 Comment Home to Stay
Well, Christmas is over and I’m still making books. Crazy? I loved making presents for my people this year – each was a book but every one was designed specifically for the person I gave it to. And now that Christmas is over… I can’t stop! It’s my first week back at college. Since Christmas, I have made three books – two in Savannah. Something about pretty papers, found fabrics, tearing pages, measuring precisely, cutting apart old books (I feel like a surgeon when I do that), smelling the old books before I make them new – it’s all very tangible. I love working with my hands. I love creativity, beauty, and the poetry that follows the passage of time. Old books made new. Presented blank to new owners. Hopefully when they are rediscovered in an attic centuries from now they will be filled with page after page of treasures. So much history between the covers.
Right now I am sipping some mediocre instant hot chocolate that I improved by dropping a Lindt Swedish truffle in (yum!) – trying to warm up from my adventures outside. It’s currently 36˚ here – the coldest I can ever remember. My fingers were unprotected by gloves because I needed to fiddle with all the knobs and levers of my view camera for Large-Format Technique class. That’s right, I’m shooting this bad boy for 10 weeks! I’m so excited! Click the link to see the video. (It might take awhile for it to load, so you might want to revisit it after you finish reading the rest of this.)
I am currently missing home. I miss my home church and my people there. I miss making dinner with Sarah Welch. I miss walking my dog in the morning and starting my day off spending some time with God. I miss the loving welcome of my home. I miss my brother and his crazy outfits.
But God has me here for a reason. While I was on break, I was missing Savannah really bad. I missed my church here – Bible study, my girls, CSF nights, and Jimbo.
How fickle am I? Adjusting is hard. I consider each place to be my home… but I only truly appreciate what I have when I am away. Last night was particularly difficult for me. Which is why I’ve decided: Jesus is my home. I have felt suffocatingly alone in both Apex and Savannah. And that’s okay I guess… because no good gift or blessing from God (no matter how wonderful) – whether it be a person, a possession, status, material wealth, talent, a relationship, a house, a family – NONE of these things is designed to bear the weight of the soul. I become so disappointed with these things because they are not meant to satisfy me – only God can. So in this difficult time of transition I am remembering that God is my home. I am accepted because of Jesus alone. I can do nothing today to make God love me any more or any less than He does right now. I am simply “unqualified.” But that’s all that is required. I have a raw, aching need for Him. To know my Maker.
Lord, you are my dwelling place. Your Spirit lives inside me. I will forever seek to know the One who made me and has made a way for me to be reunited with You. Jesus, YOU are my home. Not the things you provide or take away. I love you. And I’m here to stay.