Where do you find home?
Feller and I are in a stage of life where we are nomads between two homes, One in southern Arkansas, the Elliott Meek Nunnally home- our antebellum family home, and two in northern Alabama, (we live in one we call the Tacky Brown House and it lives up to its name as we renovate it) we live where ever our employment travels and our heart works beckon us to engage. I’m often in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania or the Northeast with clients that need me in New York…whew… I’m a country mouse, and this scurrying all over is an adventure. However if you ask me where home is, I’m more likely to tell you where ever I am with family and friends I love.
The Ozarks are home to me. Whether its entering the base of Highway 71 and driving up the winding paths through Winslow and scenes from my childhood motor car trips with my Grandparents Ruth and Alex (WA) Geddie. It was a usual thing as a child, to be included to travel across Texas and Louisiana visiting sawmills and cross tie yards as part of my Grandfather’s work with Gross and Janes. I was a precocious four to eleven year old on those trips and I’m not sure to this day why Grandfather was so generous to include me on his travels. Later I attended graduate school here…later still birthed my first child here and taught at both the University and at a school I loved so much that no longer exists…
A year ago, I met a wonderful writer through one of my client’s events and we simply clicked. I imagine our friendship much like the one Anne of Green Gables shared with her kindred spirit. Our first experience we walked arm and arm at the Bentonville Farmer’s Market and I don’t think our hearts have separated yet…I’m not sure they ever can again…
The thing about kindred spirits is that you arrive home when you are with them in body or in spirit virtually. We pick up where ever we left off whether its been a week or a month of weeks…a treasure. The stories flow naturally, the love generously…for that is what friends share.
This week the schedule kept me on a rolling wave of meetings, calls, and complex scheduling. It was the tail end of almost twenty one days of unexpected stretching.
God has a way of helping me understand that He is the provider that I must count upon…
not my strength
not my limited perspective
not my income
not my perserverence
not my understanding
He is the provider…when I’m willing to allow him to be God…and allow myself to be his beloved child. It’s like the tram, to get to Him, I must be willing to allow him to carry me to different perspective….and trust He will carry me safely through…
My friend shared her beautiful views from her home. Her fellowship and her wisdom…which if you don’t know is often more listening, hushing gently the need to speak, encouraging and celebrating that which is within each of us…. than rehashing the day…and most of all “stilling” of this busy soul to a place where I simply breathe…food for the body, food for the soul…
Where do you breathe?
Where do you find a place to quiet your soul?
How do you make time for you?
Isn’t is simply the best when our friends and loved ones show us gently by example…
and encourage us to drink in that which God has given us to enjoy…
if we’ll only take time to still ourselves to realize, we’re surrounded by His love.
