The Home Which Built Me

My parents divorced when Noah was a little older than Ezra.

At the time, it was the shock heard 'round our family.  

In retrospect, it should not have been.  All the signs were there.  They had been for years, but I was so self-involved with my own crap, I couldn't see any of them (didn't want to see any of them?).

It was around that time, perhaps a year or so later, Miranda Lambert's song The House that Built Me, came out.  Man, that song rocked me to my core.  It was everything I felt, and more, about the divorce and about losing the family home I'd grown up in.  It also then became about losing my grandmother's home I'd spent summers in, when my mother sold it as well, and losing the vast majority of whom I considered to be my family for my lifetime up until that point (including my parents and sister).  My family imploded, and relationships have been long lost.  

To this day, I still have to change the station when that song comes on.  It cuts so deep, I just cannot listen to it all the way through. The few times I have, I've always completely lost it.

Have you ever had a song (poem, book, anything) with that much power over you?

Tonight, as the kids played and the house was just alive with all of us, I hit play on YouTube for a soundtrack to our usual ridiculousness, and this particular song happened to rotate through.

I started to panic--today has been an awful, horrible weepy day for me.  I did not need this.  My family did not need this.  I did not want anymore emotion today.  I started to reach for my phone.  Turn this off.  NOW.  Make it stop.  PLEASE.  The littles were having fun.  Avery's face had been plastered with a huge grin, nothing but giggles escaping him all afternoon as he'd played with a visiting friend.  Shawn and Noah were messing around in the kitchen.  Ezra was getting in anywhere and everywhere he could.  I didn't want to ruin these precious moments for my family.  Selfishly, I didn't want to ruin these moments for myself.

Then it hit me.  I looked up, and I looked around, studying each person for just a moment, intently. 

The song still played, the words mere background noise to me.

This--right here, THIS is the home that built me.  These people--my beloved menfolk--and God, my friends, our church--it doesn't have anything to do with a building at all!  THIS is the home that rebuilt me. And the rooms in this 'home'?  Filled beyond belief with riches, more than I could ever imagine. THIS is where I found myself.  THIS is where I figured out who Amy is.  THIS is where and how I figured out the path God needs me to be on.  THIS is my home.  THIS is where I belong.

My loves, it has to do with the people! The people who love you more than anything and would do more than anything for you, and you would do more than anything for them, and The One who already has done more than anything for you--THIS is the home which has built you!  If you feel He hasn't, will you give Him the chance?  Will you give Him the opportunity?  Will you open your heart and your mind and your soul to the possibilities?  Please?  People will falter and will let us down--but God, oh my loves--God, and His son--they never will.  Look inside this home which has been so carefully and lovingly crafted just for you, and see the depths of love, and the deep burden which is carried only for you!  Will you please trust me on this one thing?

So tonight, for the first time since that song was released, I listened to the entire song without breaking down into body-breaking sobs.  Rather, I sat back and watched my family.  I smiled.  I laughed.  I gave praise.  And, I loved a lot harder.  

And that song took on an entirely new meaning for me.

And this, this right here?  THIS is the home which built me.

"By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures."

Proverbs 23:3-4