I am well aware that my last post was about transition and perhaps ‘making home’ is a cliché second post, but it’s what God is doing and saying at the moment. Who said God can’t work in natural progressions too?!
For the longest time I had a perception of what my life would look like. I envisioned finishing school, becoming a nurse, getting married, buying a cute cottage with a porch and a big garden and having babies. Lots of babies. I envisioned being the perfect home-maker, wife and mother. My husband would be well-off – of course – so that I could be a stay-at-home mum and grow my own vegetables, do lots of baking, re-vamp old furniture, have a compost heap and a long line of various sized shoes by the back door. I’ve had these plans since I was tiny: there hasn’t been a time that I haven’t wanted a baby and a family of my own. Of course, at age 10, 24 was positively middle-aged and I was certain that all of the above boxes would be ticked by this age. However, life at 24 is very different than I thought it would be when I was younger. I don’t own a house, I’m not married (not even a boyfriend on the horizon!), I certainly don’t have children. This is not to say I am unhappy. I love my flatmate and the flat I live in is perfect. I have a great job and I still manage to squeeze in baking and crafting.
I have resisted living in this area for a long time, probably for three or more years. When I was doing my nurse training, I was so eager to leave the area. It was far removed from Oxfordshire, far away from my family and I was so keen to move back to where people didn’t have an accent. However, this was not in the master plan. I decided to stay because it was easier to get a job after I qualified and I felt more secure because I knew the area and the hospital. I stayed and told myself it would only be for a year until I could get some experience and then I could move back to the hospital near home. I wasn’t able to call Thanet home. It wasn’t home. It was a temporary means to an end. I mean, I couldn’t meet someone here, certainly didn’t want to settle here and where on earth would my children go to school? (Please excuse my snobbery. I’m just being real: it was definitely there and still surfaces sometimes. I’m only work in progress.) But it was ok, it’s only temporary, right?
I was afraid to get involved in this area. I started going to church and made friends, but I kept myself at a distance with both as I didn’t want to get hurt when I left. I was reluctant to commit to things at church; I didn’t want to serve or become ‘involved’ as it would inevitably create a commitment – no matter how small – and this might mean I got sucked into church and life here. The thought of committing to anything vaguely long-term terrified me. It literally almost made the bile rise in my throat and my heart start to race. When I went to America, I was able to take extended unpaid leave from work which would enable me to come back to the same job when I came back from the States. In my mind, this was my ‘get-out’ clause, my ‘plan B’. I had, in my grand scheme of things, great plans that I would go home after America, live with my parents, get married and commence the above.
However, softly softly, there was a process underway. It happened so gently that I wasn’t really aware of it, not really until I looked back on it all. There was a point in time where one of the jobs on my to-do list was to phone my manager at work to talk about coming back. Even at the time, I thought nothing of it. It was the most natural thing in the world, to want to go back. So I spoke to her and arranged a start date, back in A&E, back in Thanet. I organised accommodation, which has turned out to be an absolutely delightful surprise, so much more amazing than I ever could have orchestrated on my own. Before I knew it, I had moved back, back to a place that in my heart, I had left a year previously with no desire to return. But, He’s not known as Jehovah Sneaky for nothing!
The funny thing about all of this is that all along, I’ve always known that I am in the right place in the right time. When I was in America, I knew without a doubt that I was meant to be there. Coming back to Thanet, and feeling glad about it, I knew I was meant to be here at this time. I’ve just been accepted onto a course to train to become a midwife; the clarity came for this decision whilst in America. The timing was wildly accelerated from my own (humble) plan and the course is happening in this area, so I won’t be going anywhere! It’s fully funded, I am salaried for the whole 18 months and then at the end, I get a payrise! Again, God has gone over and above anything I could dream up or imagine.
At church, I am involved. I am not shy of serving, or of volunteering for things. Previously, I often hid behind the excuse of “I work shifts, not sure I can make it” for church-related commitments and inevitably I would not go. I’m not hiding behind that anymore. Certainly, there are some things I can’t get to, but I've been requesting shifts to enable maximum participation. There have even been occasions where I’ve found out about more and more schools that I would send my children to, and they are in this area!
Recently, after explaining my struggles and reluctance to commit to this area, I was challenged about the concept of ‘making home.’ For me, ‘making home’ has always meant being married, being a wife, looking after all my babies, sewing gorgeous new cushions for the sofa, doing the school run, having a place to call my own that I can open and offer hospitality to others. Every day, I still want these things. I used to thing that only when I had these things, or at very least a house of my own and possibly a husband, could I start to make a home. I felt like I was living temporarily, always on the move (and I have been: 13 addresses in the last 6 years), and that I was never able to settle until I was magically ‘fulfilled’ and got married and bought a house.
For now, that’s not what making home looks like. I have no boxes ticked. My heart and innermost being yearn for all those things and I know that’s ok. But those things don’t make a home. I am a homemaker, and that’s a gift from God. God is in me. Where He is, and where I am, there is home. It has to be. Otherwise I am waiting and wasting time to put roots down, and if I can’t put roots down, then I can’t put roots down into him. Where He is, there is home. And home might look like an area I’m still unsure about living in for the rest of my life, it might look like church and friends that I have to be vulnerable with, it might look like committing, it might look like flat-sharing, it might look like being single. Because where He is, there is home.
So, I know that I need to make home here. I don’t know how long this season is, or what His plans are. I just have to trust that it’ll all be ok. I know from past experience that things often happen quicker and that they always always happen better than I could possibly dream up on my own. So for now, with His help, I am doing my best to make home. And what does that look like? It’s silly things sometimes: like not putting my parent’s address as my mailing address, and other things like giving whole friendship and not holding back lest it should end. It is coming to terms with the fact that I do live here and that this is without a doubt the right place. It’s not trying to put a ‘Best Before’ date on my time here, but just living in the present. It’s definitely knowing where my home is: in Him. All my own ideals would be nothing, not even a home, if He was not there. It’s learning to trust blindly that He has the absolute best for me.
