Forks in the road

Yet here I am with ice cream and in need of a spoon.

A good deal of my internal monologue and prayer life has been spent pondering the questions like, Where would you have me go Lord? Should I leave here? Should I return to…?

I am not sure if it is due to the moving around a lot as a child, or the moving around that I did throughout my military career, but I usually feel at peace when moving. I think that it has a lot to do with hope. Hope that the next stop will produce a connection, hope that I will stumble into my fantasy property again, finding the perfect little home. I certainly had it in NC, absolutely beautiful place, but I could not seem to make a single lasting connection there. Any real connection to be frank. Once the kids had moved on it felt real empty there. Plus being right next to Fort Bragg has its own issues. The land is beautiful, but with so many people being tied to the military there, including some of the most elite forces, there was always an air of oppression there, or perhaps repression. Either way I had a hard time finding my people there.

I have always had this idea of “Home” and what it will feel like. A lot of it stems from the bits and pieces from the different places I have lived. Even more consists in the people I’ve met while traveling.

There is this one time when I knew that I was exactly where I was “supposed” to be. It was evident in hundreds of synchronicities getting there and dozens of genuine connections made while there. It was there that I witnessed what good can come from following the tug from His Spirit. He used me in an incredibly small part in the saving of a man’s life, the Love God knew this man needed to feel and provided to him was unmistakable. It was beautiful to be a part of. If witnessing this miracle was not enough, any doubt it was erased from my mind when I heard God answer me clearly out there, when in my despair and loneliness I cried out to understand something. Turns out the answer was simple, it was because He Loves me, but hearing Him say it, Priceless. I felt at peace and like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. That Peace is real.

The only problem, and the reason I don’t return to this amazing place is because it’s several places. The most at Home I felt was living out of a tent while walking from Georgia to Maine. Many of the strongest connections I have ever made, were forged on the Appalachian Trail further cementing in the peaceful Home feeling, while moving. I would like to walk it again, but I pray that one day I will find that peace and the place that feels like Home without having to carry everything.

That is what spurred on the building of this tiny home, and the long roadtrip. The ability to seek that peace in movement, and have a bed.

To not only feel His Peace, also to feel hope that Love is around the bend. I felt that hope as I traveled back to the beaches of California where I spent a few years as a child.

I kept that hope of stumbling into Love alive as I turned around and hit the other coast.

I absolutely loved the time in between the coast, especially the dessert and High Plains where I found peace, rest and connections, the hope kept alive longer in some places as possible Love connections appeared, before disappearing.

I returned to TN slightly reluctantly, but needing to make repairs, and having to sit a while to do it. I had written this place off when the peace was clearly gone and replaced with unnecessary friction, but this place has everything but that peace and Love, so I returned.

Besides this long roadtrip I recently took, and a couple shorter ones, I have not left again. this last trip spanned almost two weeks over 2,000 miles. I felt that hope again while moving, like each place I find may contain a connection, that the pups and I may witness another miracle, or dare I say it, find Love.

That has been one of the single biggest indicators to me when I am in the wrong place, or closer to right, Love. Not just the Love that I hope for, but all the types of Love.

That is why this little town keeps calling to me, there are so many examples of Love here. One of my favorites types of Love is evident in the little church I go to here, A Mother’s Love. I have never seen a large group of children thriving like I do here, knowing that “they are loved”. These mother’s truly do love their children and I love being around it, it replenishes my soul. Being around it is why “nurturing” holds a permanent spot on My List. They also do Love each other and God. A truly beautiful thing to witness and feel, especially if it has been mostly void in one’s life.

But here has issues. First, it has been truly absent of Love, not even a lot of maybe(s). Nothing.

It would crush my ego completely if it were not from inappropriate attention. However unwanted, it helps reassure me that I am not unattractive, just only to married women or those too young to consider. There once seemed to be a hallmark movie moment in the making here. The opening scenes went smoothly as she perfectly played the disinterested and somehow angry part. Our proximity in a small church helped the story progress through the conflict/ rising action stage, Beautifully one might say.

There was to be no turning point though, and no resolution for sure though.

I could not have been happier for her when I returned and saw that she had married. I am always rooting for Love. I was also relieved a little, with so many examples of nurturing Love around her, it made her coldness completely undesirable. Plus I had yet to see many of the traits from My List, and have witnessed several traits I do not want in my life.

I just wanted the anger and judgment to be gone, but Sadly I now have two people who are clearly annoyed by my presence in a pretty small church.

I know the questions I would ask, like why stay at a small church where you are judged, and kept at a distance?

My answer is simple.

It was His answer.

I came back to town and struck back up a friendships I made with one of the few people who welcomed me, my good friend Adrian. When I returned we started talking about God more and he agreed go to a couple of services with me. I took him to a different church in town and then this little one. Once they showed Adrian warmth and acceptance, he was hooked. Once he accepted the gift of salvation and got baptized, I knew that I was stuck in this little church, accepted or not.

This area is absolutely beautiful, and the connections are coming, albeit slowly. I am even able to call some of the dirt mine. Everything else besides Love, seems to be pointing to this place being Home.

There was so much hope on this last roadtrip, that while out enjoying nature, that I would stumble across a woman, also enjoying nature. Perhaps like the spark in the dessert where all of the sudden I am sitting next to woman who not only fits My List but who embodied Love, and seemed to adore me even if only briefly, and not nearly enough to turn down another’s offer to fly her to India with him. But how quickly it manifested from nowhere still gives me hope. When I travel, I build up even more hope as I peruse the apps where others looking for love post their ads.

Sitting on the beach swiping right frantically and far less discriminately the longer I would sit somewhere. I even made a few matches while sitting in the woods, one I would even chase briefly. None that would materialize.

The problem with hope like that, especially when tethered to a location, is that it either does, or does not materialize. When out on the road, the hope continues as long as the wheels keeps spinning, and there is always even more hope with the next move.

But sitting here, with roots begging to be dug in, it is harder.

I suppose that is what all of this is trying to sound out, if this place is Home. Can a place be Home without Love? Is being around others showing Love so beautifully enough to replenish the soul?

If you would have me be somewhere else Father, show me. If you would have me be here Father, strengthen me.