No Place Like Home

This weekend, I decided to come down to Columbia to visit my sister. I knew that it would be a little difficult to be in Clemson all weekend with my team being in NYC, plus I miss my twin. When I got down here, we decided to go and walk through our old neighborhood that we grew up in. I haven't been back to my old street in almost 8 years. We drove to our old neighborhood swimming pool, parked, and started on the half mile walk to our old house. I have to admit, I was nervous. Nervous to see how time had changed my past. The street looked smaller somehow. I guess being a few years older and a few inches taller made the world look like it shrunk. When we approached it, my heart sunk. The oak tree that I had counted behind for hide and seek countless times had been chopped down. My playhouse where I pretended to make the worlds best chocolate chip cookies out of plastic kitchen ware was nowhere to be found. But worst of all, the piece of the driveway that housed mine and my siblings handprints was torn up and cast away. The house sat at the same address, on the same corner, in the same neighborhood, but it wasn't my house. It was theirs, whoever they may be. It helped me to realize something about my walk with God though. That even though I have been weathered by change, pulled at times by the devil, and torn up a few times, I am still the same girl God has loved throughout. When I saw my old house today, I still referred to it as my house. Thats what God does. Even when we lose our way sometimes, He still says, "that's my child." He knew and knows that sin will come up in our lives. He knows that we will change. He knows that we may appear different on the outside after time goes by. But with all of that, He still only looks to the inside. God loves our souls. Just as I love my old home. Through all of this thought, today God gave me confidence. He made me understand that just because I am a little behind in training, just because I struggle to give up control, just because I lost the light for a while...I am still His and His alone. For this I am baffled, but in a greater sense humbled. God took my breath away today. And all it took was to take me back home.