leaving home

I don't know if I'm ready to write this.

You never know how much you love home till you leave it. When they hug you too hard and you bite your tongue and try to remember to breathe and not let the heat behind your eyes fall yet cause you know it won't stop. When they shut the door behind them and the car pulls out and they're gone. And you can't stand that you won't be there for the clogging performances, basketball games, rainy Saturday afternoons, the family devotions, math lessons, the fights, the competitions for showers, watching Jeopardy at night, campfires, sleepovers, Dad's days off, and every other in between. And the end of a good thing hurts so bad, because it was a good thing. It was so good. And that's how it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be different now, but that doesn't make it any easier. 

Because your little sister is crying and insisting on one more hug and Mom's trying to keep it together and your brother keeps saying he'll see you soon and Dad's saying how much he loves you. And everything new is wonderful and good but it doesn't keep you from sitting on your bed in your room with the door closed blurring pages of your journal with tears.

every good and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. james 1:17.

behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. isaiah 43:19.

he has made everything beautiful in its time. ecclesiastes 3:11.

no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. 1 corinthians 2:9.