True Belonging

In two months our family will ship a car and large container over the Pacific Ocean, crossing our fingers that our things will arrive in Hawaii without being lost at sea. We will board an airplane, and for several hours in the sky, have no geographical place to call home. We’ll be leaving the familiar, on our way to the new, and momentarily living in-between.

The image that comes to mind is that of Dorothy, being caught up in a great cyclone, and swept from Kansas into the mysterious Land of Oz. In the cyclone itself is chaos, uncertainty, and disengagement. But it is the very thing that brings Dorothy to new discoveries of the world and herself. 

A year and a half ago, our decision to move our family to a new place was catalyzed, in significant part, to an image of a ship being steered into fog. And here we begin to find ourselves, in a fog headed toward a new place.

In this interim and in-between, I sense a divine invitation to find my belonging not in a particular place or to a particular people, but to find it in God. Because isn’t that the deeper reality? Our true belonging is found in God. In him we abide and nestle, and are held in eternal security. Everything else is volatile and perishable.

But to believe in my belonging is a challenge. I have become rooted to many things and people. I know who I am in this current place. To leave that means to dismantle and disidentify. And that takes some courage.

Instead of hustling about to create my own makeshift place of belonging, I am choosing to dwell in this neutral zone of transition. I am embracing an emptying for the sake of making space for reliance and dependence on God. I am abiding in Him, and finding rest and peace and joy.

I am letting go, and with hope, believing that I belong to a God who is good and trustworthy.