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with Kathleen Gibson Dec. 10, 2008 When You're NOT Home for Christmas �I�ll be home for Christmas,� croons Fats Domino as I sit and click. So will the Preacher and I. And home is still the community we�ve lived in for almost two decades. We weren�t supposed to be here. For four months I�ve looked for housing nearer my work. One by one, we�ve struck each possibility off the list. I feel like Goldilocks, without the bears: Really needing renos. Designed for dwarves. Manufactured for millionaires. Too inaccessible. Too big. Too small. Moldy. Old. Sold. We�ve scratched the notion of building on the lots we�ve purchased. Crossed out moving on a little house off the prairie. Nixed the mobile, for now. After the seemingly endless transition of the last sixteen months�in and out of hospital and rehab centre, then a move from our old parsonage last spring�the Preacher and I are both ready to settle somewhere. But we�ll not be moving later this fall as I announced in an earlier column. We will move, but God only knows where and when. I�m fresh out of prophecies. A year ago I sat beside the Preacher, a gray man slumped in a wheelchair, in the chapel at Wascana Rehab Centre. A young lady minister, wearing a pink sweater set and a captivating smile, opened her homily this way: �It�s the oldest story in the world, not being where you want to be.� I listened, keenly aware of our uncertain future. The Preacher�s job, our home, our church family�it seemed the pirates were poised to take it all�and indeed, they did. But God is helping me understand that sometimes not being where we feel most comfortable is precisely the place we need to be, for ourselves and others. Unexpected, even painful, transition (if we let it) builds our own strength and proves God�s. What would have become of the Israelites, had they insisted on a ferry at the Red Sea? Would Ninevah have survived if Jonah hadn�t camped in a whale�s belly? If David had stayed in the field, serenading sheep, would Goliath have fallen? Would Peter have walked on water if he hadn�t leapt out of the boat? And what if the Apostle Paul had simply put on a pair of sunglasses when God�s light blinded him? Of course we want to be home for Christmas. It�s most everyone�s favorite place. Yet the message of Christmas includes the exact opposite. From heaven�s perfection, Christ ejected into time�to a comfortless birth, a dysfunctional home and a life of poverty. Why? To become the bridge to God for those who eventually crucified him, and all since. Christmas, I�ve finally realized (somewhat reluctantly!) is not only about going home�it�s also about leaving home. It challenges us to deliberately march into the dark and shine a Christ-light. To trust God�s love when something shoves out the ends of our ruts or blasts us from our recliners. And to find in all those uncomfortable, unfamiliar places and times, incomparable peace. �2008 Kathleen Gibson Respond HOME |
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