“The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” Matthew 7:25

Home

A few days ago I heard this statement: “Home isn’t where you hang your hat—it’s where you hang your heart.” I so agree with that. That’s how Floyd and I lived our lives.

My heart has been at home all over the world with Floyd. We spent our first five years together living out of a suitcase. Our first home was in Kabul, Afghanistan. We had three different “homes” there; 4 in Holland; California; Colorado; two in Kansas City; three in Cape Town. We lived in a lot of places (you might not always think of them as a “home”—often it was just a small room!). There have been 14 of them to be exact—but my “home” had always been wherever Floyd was.

Growing up in Galveston, Texas I always knew I was going somewhere—but I didn’t know where. I knew God had called me to the world, but the “call” was never to a specific place like I heard some people explain when they talked about how God had called them. As it turned out, my call was to many places as God led and directed our lives and ministry…but the main thing is that it was to be by Floyd’s side.

I’m still amazed when I think of how God led our lives to cross paths at a YWAM outreach—in Las Vegas, Nevada of all places! Me from Texas and Floyd from California, meeting at that outreach. Floyd loved to tell jokes about meeting in Las Vegas! Can you hear it? He took a real “gamble” when he met me! There are lots of fun details to that whole story of our meeting and falling in love!

And then there was my Summer of Service in Samoa that Floyd helped sponsor and I didn’t know it until we got engaged…and I was actually too young to have even gone on that outreach, but they made an exception for me. I look back, and I see God’s hand so very clearly, in so many ways, on our lives. He had a wonderful plan for us! I think much of it was an answer to the prayers of my mother and Floyd’s parents.

Seeing this so vividly throughout my life has helped me know that God has a plan for this season of my life too. I don’t understand it all, but I have a sweet assurance that God is at work. His plan for our lives, our destiny, didn’t stop when Floyd got sick or when I got cancer. God is still leading me—with the ultimate destination being in heaven with Him.

I know these years on our unexpected, very unplanned journey, haven’t been wasted. Without that sweet assurance in my heart, it would be easy to despair. In some ways it seems like an anti-climactic ending to a very dramatic and adventurous life. But I know God has been at work in this season. Someday in heaven it will all be clear! I sense His presence with us, His hand of involvement with me as clearly as I have over our decades of married life together all over the world. God is still at work!

When “bad things happen to good people”, as we often hear quoted, doesn’t mean that God has gone on vacation and left us alone. HE IS STILL AT WORK in our lives! He doesn’t abandon us. He doesn’t throw up His hands and say, “Well, I didn’t plan on that!” We live in a fallen world, so bad things do happen…we do get sick… there are accidents…but God helps us pick up the pieces and keep going. He continues working to bring good, to bring meaning and purpose into our lives as we walk through the hard times.

Lord, may our hearts dwell in peace in the exact place You have placed us. May we then be willing to move on as You direct us.