I've always felt this agonizing ache inside me - an inner cry - I want to go home. I felt it - always there - intense - overpowering - a deep gut wrenching yearning - gnawing inside - I want to go home. I just want to go home. But I had no home. I had no family to go to. I was alone. On the streets. My mother dead - my older sister gone - left the city - left me alone. Just him. My father - raging - using me as a scapegoat for all his hurts and frustrations. After one vicious beating - I ran......
I want to go home! I just want to go home!
I tried to dull its pain by being stoned - shooting dope - three, sometimes four times a day - throwing up - cutting myself. But even then - I still felt its tug - that emptiness - that aloneness - that nobody cared if I lived - or was hurt - or safe - or scared.
Homesickness - that awful ache in my gut constantly reminding me I was completely alone. - Leaving me feeling lost - afraid - Telling me I was worthless - insignificant - my existance meaningless.
I want to go home!
It pushed me to live wild, on the edge, out of control - indifferent - not caring - daring life and God to kill me.
This past summer we moved to a new place on the lakeshore in a beautiful community - friendly neighbours - great surroundings - tons of wildlife. It's a long way from the streets, from not having any money or material things, from the fear of being stalked by sick crazy predators - and dancing around controlling professionals who all believed they had the answers for my life - medications, low income housing, welfare, pysch hospitals, ongoing lifetime therapy........
Somehow God cut through when nothing else could. He touched me - broke the chains - gave me a sense of FINALLY coming home.
I'm not sure how He did it - but I do know - I'm home. I feel it. That throbbing ache inside - gone. I'm not running alone anymore. I'm not afraid. And I'm with people - who love me - really love me - who care......
I don't ever want to get so comfortable that I forget what it feels like to be homesick on the inside. I don't ever want to forget - I want my hand to always be extended - to reach out and help someone else find their way home.
