A permanent home

The eight months are over.  I fly out on Friday.  And then, ten short days later, I will fly back home.   Home to my house, my roommate, and my dog.  Home to my friends and makeshift family.  Home, to Oregon.  Because while my heart will always love and long for Cincinnati and all that comes with it, it has found a peaceful home here in the canyon.  And one of my most persistent requests for the Lord these past few years has been permanence.  A place to call home, to plant roots.  And while in all those years, I would never have imagined that home, and those roots, to be in Oregon, it seems I've found a new love.  

Because despite being far from my sister, I live with a girl who invests and cares for my heart in a very familiar fashion.  Who laughs at my jokes and cares even less about the youtube videos I show her. My parents may live 2500 miles away, but I have makeshift parents who go with me to get new tires, and who bake with me to learn my frosting tips.  I have a group of friends that makes me smile until my face hurts.  I have a tv to watch every Bengals game on.  I have a dog who loves waking me by kissing my face.  And while it's far from home, it is home.  It seems natural when I'm on my one hour drive to the grocery.  It's perfectly normal to have a small child wander into my kitchen during lunch because she saw me walk into the house and wanted to say hi.  I bring my own soda, knowing there will be endless HOT popcorn on movie nights.  

It's kind of like coming home from summer staff or work crew, or even just a week of camp.  I can write all the wonderful language I want to write, but it's impossible to describe what the ranch is like.  What day to day life out here, in our tiny community in the middle of our tens of thousands of acres, is like.  But hey, it's home now, so I'll just encourage you to come visit.  Come experience for yourself God's country.  Because that picture isn't from a photogenic morning.  It's just another morning at the Ranch. So book your tickets, use your vacation days, and come on out to my home in the Pacific Northwest.