This is Home

I've missed this.

Drinking well-water straight from a faucet. Having my own quiet attic room to myself. Calling up friends and seeing their faces fifteen minutes after I hang up the phone. Driving down country roads, windows down, music just as loud as I want it to be.

Yeah, I've missed being home.

Home is where I feel the most comfortable...and yet I don't actually feel like I fit. There's faces and places that I'll not soon forget, but I'm a wanderer now, and that feeling won't soon disappear. Being a wanderer puts you on edge and sets you free; you're always waiting to dive into what's next, your thoughts always pulsing towards something else.

Being home should be stable and warm and...it is. Mostly.

But it's also a reminder. A reminder that the people I left here aren't quite the same anymore. A reminder that reality does exist and "America, land of the free" happens to be adding more rules to the list.

It's a horrible thought that what I felt was a temporary, glorious lifestyle as a gypsy, can't stay that way. Either it has to be a permanent situation (living out of my suitcase, never really having a home), or my life has to start changing, and I need to "grow up" and get some real knowledge and a real job so I can pay for taxes. Obviously, none of that is very attractive to me. I've been doing quite well with my life, I thought. Spending 3-6 months in different places is not a bad deal.

Do I have to focus bills and taxes? Those things are exactly why I never went to the university I wanted to go to - money, debt, taxes. I get that everyone else on this planet is struggling for survival. I understand that the world operates on money that no one really has. I don't want that to tear me down, though. I don't want to focus on that. When I look around me, I don't see freedom. I see bondage.

And that's why I'm trying to create my own sort of freedom. I've chosen jobs and situations that don't put me in debt and that don't create bills for me. Honestly, the only thing I consistently pay for is my cell phone. Sure, I'm not at the top of the food chain, and it hasn't gotten me far. But look where I'm standing. I've gotten to travel. I've made so many friends. I am happy.

College isn't bad. Neither is a "normal" life. But I am so incredibly glad that my life has been anything but normal. That God has led me in all sorts of random ways to all sorts of places.

I suppose it comes down to that, doesn't it? That He hasn't led me to go back to school. He hasn't led me to seek out a successful life. And I'm okay with that.

Ah, home. Where raindrops are plentiful and snow in April isn't shocking. Where the people are mostly friendly and all of them want to leave the state. Where fast food restaurants thrive and everything else struggles to get by. Ohio holds the people I most care about.

I've missed this. I've only got two weeks to enjoy it.

Adventures Never Cease

It's been a little while since I've written. It's like I've been too busy living or something to write. Funny how that works.

This adventure is almost over. I only have TWO WEEKS left in this beautiful place nestled between the mountains. Fourteen days of snow and mountain peaks and "seasonal friends" (I didn't even know that this was a thing until now) and snowboarding and rooming with my bestie and dorm life and teaching little rugrats how to enjoy the snow.

Only a little while longer existing in this place.

Only a little more time with these people who have become part of my life. And I may not see any of them again. Ever.

It's scary how fragile and fast life is. How much time I spend wishing things were different or stressing about how they are...when time is spinning me out of control and I can't hold on. I need more reminders of how important every second is.

My heart is full. I am incredibly sad to go. And yet I can also imagine the relief I will feel as I pack up the life I have here and return home, to familiar faces and places. My cozy attic-like bedroom. The green grass, abundant rainfall, and chirping birds of an Ohio spring. The goofiness and chaos and love that is my family. The friends that I've been horrible at communicating with while I've been here.

This winter season has represented a lot of firsts for me. First time in a dorm (college life without the homework, check). First tattoo (...yeah, I did it). First boyfriend (sheesh how that word still sends shivers up my spine; I have never liked how that word seems to throw one's perception of life out the window). The awe I feel every time I look around me at the mountains. The crazy fear as I launched myself off of a jump I wasn't ready for. The giddy joy I felt in shredding through fresh powder.

Sunburn and heartache and burning desire and dreams come true and snowflakes everywhere and a God who meets me in all of these places.

As I'm struggling with saying goodbye, this verse keeps popping out at me, reminding me that it is time to move forward.

"Don't remember the former things, and don't consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don't you know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert." Isaiah 43:18-19 

I'm gonna need those paths in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. After my short hiatus in Arizona, Virginia, and Ohio, I'll have to kiss vacation goodbye and jump into a job that I honestly don't feel qualified for.

This summer, starting in May, I'm going to be an Adventure Counselor at Lutheran Valley Retreat. It's a camp in the wilderness near Colorado Springs. And trust me, it will be all about God's beautiful creation. I'll be helping lead backpacking trips mostly, so lots of camping and hiking. Plus rock climbing (real rocks, real mountains - none of that wall climbing stuff) and ropes courses and horses and archery and...sorry, but it has been a lot for me to take in, too.

I won't have cell phone service. I may or may not have internet on the weekends. Feel free to reach me with snail mail, guys, cause otherwise you won't be hearing from me!

It's going to be the weirdest combination of full-on introvert time in the wilderness and constant, Caitlin-stretching time with kids and counselors alike.

Yep. I'm just trading this winter adventure for an even crazier summer one. And this time I won't have my amazing bestie Lauren to keep me sane.

I'm going it alone.

Thank you, God, for never leaving me. For sticking around so that even when I'm walking a lonely path, You're there promising me I'm never really alone. And for always teaching me the best and hardest lessons.

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. 
I shall not. 
I will not.
I will follow where You lead. 

 

I am Yours

For I am Yours
And For I am Yours
And You are mine

What does this mean to me? How deep do these words penetrate? I know the words, I welcome their impossibly true presence in my life. But each profound facet of the meaning doesn't hit me yet. It comes at me day by day. When I least expect it, a piece of who He is clubs me over the head, and I am lost again in the revelation:

I am Yours
And You are mine

Someone asked a question this week that tore me up inside. He said, "I think Christians need to reevaluate why they are for God." I couldn't answer that for myself. I couldn't form an outcome. Nothing would come to mind. There was just a wall of confusion. Because how could I not be for God? After all this time, after all He's done...how could I not? And then the other voice in my head kept asking, "Am I for God? Am I really?"

I don't know why this question has never been asked before.

But when my head finally cleared enough to give even a semblance of a reason, I came to this conclusion. Why am I for God? Because I need His love.

I cannot replicate it or find it somewhere else. I cannot run from it. I cannot discover it. His love has come into my life - I did not ask for it. It came and overwhelmed me and addicted me all at once.

I'll never be the same.

I am His.
He is mine.

So when little things tear my gaze away from who He is, that crazy love always chases me down and brings me to my knees. He never lets me stray far.

It's beautiful, this love.

Of course it's appropriate that I'm talking about love on Valentine's Day. I mean, naturally ;) I am so afraid that earthly loves are going to distract me from Him (they can and they do). I...I have never dived so deep into risking hurt before, with love. It scares me.

God has placed me here. Which is exactly why I know that I need not fear. His love casts out this fear and reminds me that everything, especially pain, is designed to draw me to Him.

I am more than okay with this.