heart homelessness

'Philadelphia's Homeless' photo (c) 2010, Cliff - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/Sometimes I feel like my heart is homeless. As though she has nowhere to land. And I'm swallowed up by loneliness, even if I'm surrounded by people. And my feelings are all over the map rather than in one specific place. And home—a place where I feel safe, understood, seen—is nowhere in sight.

Each of us walks such individual journeys, that even someone who has been somewhere similar still can't fully understand the place we find ourselves in. There is a unique loneliness that comes with our paths. A loneliness that cannot be avoided. An inevitable they-just-don't-get-it-ness.

Heart homelessness.

Sometimes it feels more overwhelming, and sometimes I don't feel it at all. It comes and goes like the tide, though without predictability or rhythm.

And my heart's left carrying around her makeshift cardboard shelter... always looking for a place and a people that feel like home.

I know deep down that Home is only in Christ. That He is my shelter, my refuge. He is my security. In Him I am always seen, known, understood, loved, and safe.

But I also think He calls us to find a mirrored sense of home in community.

In those times when it happens, it is absolutely beautiful! A miraculous gift... I have lived this, experienced this, time and time again. There are no words to describe the matchless wonder of this tangible extension of our Heavenly Home...

Yet relationships have seasons... Friends move on... Even the best-intended aren't always trustworthy (myself included)... And everyone's journeys are different (even when they are similar)...

So sometimes our hearts simply have nowhere to land...

What then?

I don't know...

As usual, my writing (like my heart) takes the shape of a question mark rather than a period. And so instead of presuming to have an answer, I ask you...

What do you do when your heart feels homeless?