five minute fridays...home

i love five minute fridays. i love them but i don't do them nearly as much as i should.

but today i'm following lisa-jo's lead and i'm taking 5 minutes to do what i love to do...write. so here goes...5 minutes, no editing, no over-thinking, no plan...

go...

home

as i grow older home doesn't mean the same thing to me anymore. sure it means family, and memories and being able to be yourself in a world that constantly tries to change you, but home means more to me now.

with each growing year my heart longs for something more. it longs for my final home. it longs to be with my Lord and Savior.

my heart sees home as Heaven now. i see home as Jesus.

there are days that i wish Heaven would hurry. i wish to leave the craziness of this world behind.

but something always stops me. something always tells me there's more work to be done.

there's a world of hurting people that need help. there's a world of hurting people who haven't met Jesus. there's a world of hurting people that need to know...they need to know that they don't have to walk around hurting. that they can have peace. that they can be ok.

so even while my hearts longs for my eternal home, i understand that there's still work to be done.

there are still porches of people's souls that need to be swept. still dirty laundry that needs to be cleaned out of lives. and still weeds that need to be pulled out of people's hearts.

yeah there's a lot of work to be done first before i go home. so much work to be done.

but i'm ready. as much as i'm ready to be home, i'm ready to make sure everyone else is coming home with me too.

my dad's jacket

sometimes i wear my dad's old jacket. the one he used to wear all the time.

like ALMOST EVERYDAY all the time.

it's one of those jackets that long ago went out of style but seems to make a little comeback every now and then. but despite it being old-fashioned and slightly out of date, i still wear it. i admit it's  mostly just around the house, but i wear it.

because it reminds me of him.

 it was one of the only pieces of clothing i kept when he died.

that and an old pair of his socks.

everything else went to the nursing home. my dad would have wanted it that way. somehow the most giving man i ever knew was able to continue giving even after he died. 

but i had to keep something. i don't know why.

i guess i thought if i didn't give everything away that i'd still have a piece of him. i guess i thought if i kept his favorite jacket then he wouldn't really be gone.

crazy, i know. but somehow it's true.

on days when i feel alone, or tired, or overwhelmed...i put on his jacket.

on days when i miss him, or i need his advice, or i can't believe he's gone...i put it on and wrap it even tighter.

somehow this jacket puts my dad in the room. somehow this jacket puts my dad in the world.

same with the socks. they're threadbare now but it doesn't matter. just the sight of them brings back a million memories.

and just wearing them brings peace.

and that's what my dad meant to me in this world.

safety.

and love.

and peace.

it may be old. it may be out of date. it may even be out of style. but it was my dad's jacket.

so if you see me wearing it, tread softly.

because i'm not ready to let go of either of them just yet.

and i'm not sure that i ever will be.