There's No Place Like Home!

"Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things are ahead, I press forward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."--Philippians 3:13-14

 I have some issues regarding the common translation of this verse.  I know what it says, to not focus on what is behind and reach forward.  But, too often, I fear that Christians take it too literally in that trying to 'forget what is behind', they hinder their own personal healing and growth that the Lord offers them.

A few years back, I was led back to my home-town, for the purpose I thought, was to attend graduate school, but in the end that only got me 12,000 dollars in debt! In my heart of hearts, I resented the fact that I had to leave Ashland, of which had not only been my place of residence, but had come to be, and always had been, my true home on this 'swiftly-turning planet'.  But looking back (no pun intended), I see now that my purpose in moving back to the place where I was reared was to cut out all that is within me from my past that was hindering me from moving forward in my walk with God.  In a word, looking backwards helped me to let go, reach forward, and press on to the "upward call".  Without that time of introspection and realization of my anger, unresolved pain, bitterness, and abuse from family, friends, even the church (something I still deal with today, "Jesus never said everyone was lovable, right? That's why he made the church!"), I would not have found the amazing freedom of true healing and the pathway to not only receiving forgiveness for myself but for those who hurt me in the past, present, and even the future.  By looking back, as well, into the ways I have wronged others, I am free to forgive those that hurt me by recognizing how I have done damage myself.  So, I urge you, my Christian brother and sister, if you have been told by the leadership of the church or even other parishners, to forget what is behind, not to obey this until you have made peace with yourself and allowed God to 'work out' the pain that needs to be released.  Only in that, in my experience, will you be able to move forward to your glorious calling and a true freedom.

I resent, as well, the popular thought around the church that "feelings are  evil".  In truth, I had a friend outside the church, a nonbeliever of  sorts,  who always has expressed the need for me to "feel my feelings" and that has been the truth path-way to abiding deeper and more closely with the Lord.  In my own thought process, feelings are just feelings, they are not bad or good, but merely feelings."  Feelings do not necessarily have any significance of a notion of evil or sin, they just are.  I have found when I start to feel a feeling, if I acknowledge to myself and allow myself to 'experience that emotion' (not necessarily by expressing it outwardly), it passes away and I am able to continue forward.  Later on, I am able to examine why the emotion was felt and truly let that be healed.

Well, during my struggles back in the childhood stomping grounds, I often longed to be once-again in my true 'home-town' of Ashland, Oregon.  I cannot explain to those who are not called to this place just why and how I feel this to be my place, and even if I travel or live elsewhere, I know that this is always where my heart resides.  And truly, home is where the heart dwells!  But, I know this was where I was supposed to be, at some point, I was meant to return.  I would often find myself fleeing the confines of the California residence and escaping to a kind of 'spiritual retreat' to Ashland.  All my friends that reside here, who truly know the magic of the town, knew that I would one day move back.  I felt this too, but I know now that I could not return until God had accomplished in me what he needed to internally in that place.  But, as I say with my favorite movie herione, Dorothy Gale, "There is no place like home" or rather, "There is no place like Ashland!"

I hope my readers will themselves go back into their past, deal with it, acknowledge their hurts and how they have hurts others, and then truly move on.  You may not have to physically go back to a place, but there may be 'a place that resides within' that you need to travel to, and become truly free.

So, at that time, I pray you can say the words I have longed to express to my Ashland friends (about my time in California and all that entitled):

"Truly, this was a real live place, and I remember some of it wasn't very nice at all, but most of it was beautiful--But, all I kept saying was, I want to go home! I want to go to Ashland--And they sent me home!"

And also, the lesson Dorothy learned, I have learned in that:

"If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard, because it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with."

Truly, friends, there is no place like....Ashland, Oregon!

He who has ears, let him hear