There’s No Place Like Home

Have you ever been homesick for a moment in time? Whenever my girls can’t sleep, they like to come snuggle on the couch next to me and ask if we can look at pictures on the phone. They especially love watching videos of themselves from when they were “little.” Admittedly, I also love this look back in time despite being manipulated into letting them stay up later. I love peering back into their baby and toddler years and remembering their little voices, their wobbly movements and what our home and everyday world looked like before it was shattered. Those years are such a precious moment in time and now they are gone, existing only in my memory and iCloud.

The last couple years have been full of the unexpected. Full of joy, full of sorrow, and full of life. While weathering the storm of sudden widowhood, single parenting through grief and teaching in both the face and aftermath of a pandemic, I have had one constant; God is with me. When life as we know if changes in the blink of an eye, we can rest assured that those surprises have already been known to the Creator since the beginning of time. The Lord already knows what lies ahead on the paths we are each walking and offers us a hand as we navigate our footing down each slippery slope and crumbling rock.

At the beginning of 2014 when Taylor and I got back from our honeymoon and packed up the rest of my things in Texas to move me to New Mexico, I sat in the passenger seat of his pickup as we pulled out of my parents driveway thinking that I would never live near them again after spending my first 26 years of life in the same zip code. When I chose Taylor, I knew that meant choosing to make a life alongside of his work on the ranches. My place was wherever he was. We used to speculate that if life ever gave us the opportunity to move back to Fort Worth it would either be because we had become wildly successful or because s*** hit the fan.

“Then the Lord said to Jacob, ‘Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.'”

Genesis 31:3

Well, the fan was hit. Hard. Since losing Taylor, time has seemed to move simultaneously faster and painstakingly slower and I have spent a lot of time waiting. Waiting alone in a “foreign land” for God to call me at the right time and lead me to the next right place. I learned a long time ago (although I constantly need to remind myself) not to be anxious for anything because when God’s timing is right, doors are opened and plans are revealed. After a couple years of waiting, God has called me home to Fort Worth, Texas where the girls and I will all start the new school year together on the same campus. Trusting that God would reveal the right path at the right time is always worth the wait.

I’m sure everyone has felt at some point like they are living in a holding pen. Holding steady and patiently waiting to make their next move. Waiting is universal. We are all waiting for different things wether it be a new job, a relationship, a baby, a medical cure, etc… The one thing we all have in common is that we are all waiting on answers to our prayers. We might not always get the answer we want and sometimes we are lead to keep waiting, but God always provides us with the answers when we ask and listen. Most importantly, we can be assured that when it is time to walk down a new path in life that God will always be with us.

Love, Molly

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