My heart has been pretty heavy for awhile, which is why you haven’t heard from me in awhile either. If you’ve been through a deployment – you get it. Sometimes, you just don’t have any motivation – even for the things you love the most (like writing). It’s been a rough few weeks, which I’ll write about in posts to come.

I’ve been extra home sick recently, which for those that know me might sound funny because I’ve lived in the same place for the past 13 years or so now. You’d think I’d call where I live now home – but I don’t. “Home” will always be the place I grew up, the place where my family still is, the place that built me. 

And yes, home will also be wherever I am with my husband and our children. However, when he’s deployed this place feels so far from home I can’t even describe it. The emptiness, the loneliness, the restlessness. This place where we live is just not home to me without him here to share it.

About two years ago, my husband and I had the opportunity of a lifetime to make the move, for my dream job, in my home town. Through a series of life decisions, we decided to stay where we are. I still think about what life would be like if we would have moved, but I know that God has a plan, and I know that I have to trust it. I know that the life He has planned for me is greater than I could ever plan for myself. I feel Him working in big ways in our life right now, and I’m SO excited for the next chapter of our life. That next chapter of course includes the dream of living closer to my family, my home, the place and people that helped make me who I am today.

The Song “The House that Built Me” by Miranda Lambert really touches my heart, because it reminds me that no matter how far away I am, or how long I’ve been away, the people and the places that I grew up with are a HUGE part of who I am. And I’m proud of it. I hope to find a place that my husband and I can both truly call home, together. Create a new home in a new place that our children can one day listen to this song and long to come back to as well.

I know they say, you can’t go home again
Well, I just had to come back one last time
And Ma’am, I know, you don’t know me from Adam
But these hand prints on the front steps are mine

Up those stairs, in that little back bedroom
Is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar
And I bet you didn’t know under that live oak
My favorite dog is buried in the yard

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself

If I could just come in, I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

Mama cut out pictures of houses for years
From “Better Homes and Garden” magazine
Plans were drawn and concrete poured
And nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama’s dream

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself

If I could just come in, I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

You leave home, you move on
And you do the best you can
I got lost in this whole world
And forgot who I am

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself

If I could walk around, I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me