Back at Home

I’m back in Cheyenne now and feeling so strange.  I love being home, getting to hug my family and sleep in my own bed with my own sheets.  I love smelling my mom’s cooking and sitting in the living room with the glow of Christmas tree lights.  I love being able to play the piano again.  I love the crisp western air and bright sunny sky.  And watching the Rockies come into view as my plane was landing was one of the most glorious things my eyes have seen.  Those mountains never fail to inspire awe within me. 

But I also love England.  It was heart-wrenching to leave Oxford and the people I came to love and hold dear.  On the plane ride home I sat next to a lady from London, and had the privilege to converse with her for several hours.  God is so kind; her lively companionship while travelling made the good-bye softer and more bearable.  It also gave me hope that I was only saying a temporary good-bye and will again see the country I love second only to my own.  It’s just that next time I will have people to visit, my travelling companion not the least of them, which is even better than going to sight see or study for it is people that make a country.    

I learned so many lessons at Oxford, changed so much, cried, laughed, struggled, failed and succeeded.  I made so many mistakes, but those were often the lessons that taught me the most.  But mostly, I tried.  I tried so hard.  Harder than I ever have before.  I hesitated, then threw all my fears into the wind.  And I was blessed, in ways I never could have imagined.  I grew up, though I still have plenty of room to continue to mature and plenty more to learn.  If anything, I only scraped the tip of the iceberg of learning.  And I hope that as I move from saying good-bye, to reflecting on the specific lessons and content I learned, that I can in some way be a blessing to you.   

My favorite questions to be asked have become, “What do you think about X?” “Why do you think that?”  “What do you think if we add Y into the mix?”    

Isaiah 1:18 – "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” God is a God of reason, rationality, and sense.  And I love that about Him.   

And I am already choked up.  Never in my life have I felt so respected as a student, as a curious and inquisitive mind.  I’ve also never been in a place where I simultaneously felt so much like I fit in and stuck out like a bright yellow canary in a land of muted grays, greens and browns.  Not that I am aching to go back.  Or wishing I wasn’t home.  Those kinds of thoughts would spoil the joy of today, of being home with my beautiful family that I have so missed.  I just wish that I could somehow teleport you all back in time, back to Oxford, and walk you down my favorite streets – in the darkening afternoon sky when the lampposts are beginning to light and spread their warm glow; take you to my favorite coffeehouses and treat you to the best black tea in the world; show you the meadow and stroll along the footpath following the Thames, arm in arm, listening to the ducks and geese honk and squawk at each other like the sound of old men laughing; and oh, to take you to the churches where you can feel the ancient wood, touch the stone walls and hear the choirs sing, their voices reverberating off the vaulted ceilings and gracing your ears like liquid gold. 

I hope you can pardon my moments of emotional reflection in this and the blogs to come; I simply wish I could take you into the world where I learned and loved so very much.