The Gift of Coming Home: What Happens When the Waves Finally Recede

The Gift of Coming Home: What Happens When the Waves Finally Recede

After having our great-granddaughter with us for a week, she and I flew to Cincinnati where her family met us at the airport and joyfully welcomed her home. We all had lunch together at a nearby restaurant and then I flew back to Nashville that same day. Tom picked me up at the airport, we had a bite to eat, and I went to bed. I slept for almost ten hours.

When I woke up, I lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling, thinking about everything that had happened over June and July: The trips, the surgeries, the wedding, the book fair, the church camp with four hundred kids, the death of my only aunt, the burial of my mom's ashes, the brother-in-law's miracle, the heart episodes, the great-granddaughter's dance recital and her week at our house, which included four days at church camp. All of it, wave after wave after wave, and yet here I was at home, tired in a way that felt earned rather than depleted. Grateful in a way that surprised me.

What Came Through the Storm

Tom has been keeping busy, too, with projects around the house, reviving our plants and grass that suffered during a heatwave while we were in California. With his tender care, they are doing much better.

And I think that image of someone tending what looked dead and watching it recover might be the closest thing to a summary of this whole season.

God brought us through it. Not around it or above it, but through it.

Jesus said in Matthew 11:28 (NLT): "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest," and He certainly has.

For the past six weeks, I have been sharing stories from this overwhelming, beautiful, grief-soaked, joy-filled season. If there is one thing I pray you will take away from all of it, it is this: overwhelm does not have to steal your joy, not if you keep bringing it to Jesus.

He was in the surgery that opened up unexpectedly. He was in the barn in the rain. He was at the graveside and the dinner table. He was in the EMTs' hands on a beach. He was in the weariness that slowed me down and in the ten hours of sleep that followed.

He is in your story right now, too, in whatever wave you are facing, in whatever grief you are carrying, and in whatever joy is breaking through when you least expect it.

The Season Ahead

Tom and I will do our best to get back into a routine. We have a few weeks at home before one more trip to Montana to say a final goodbye to my aunt.

Life is not done being full, but I am learning slowly, imperfectly, to stop waiting for the calm and start finding Christ in the waves.

There will be more seasons like this. I'm not naive enough to think otherwise. But I know something now that I didn't know two months ago:

• Joy doesn't wait for the storm to pass

• God meets us in the middle of the mess

• Rest is not weakness; it's faithfulness

• Every wave carries a message worth hearing

• Nothing surrendered to Him is ever wasted

Where We Started

This series began with a simple question: Have you ever had a season where life felt like one wave after another?

Now with the season behind us, or at least paused for a moment, we arrive at a different question: What did you find in the waves?

The thing about storms is they don't just take from us. They reveal things we would never have seen in the calm: Faith we didn't know we had; strength we didn't realize was there; love we only discovered when we were desperate for it.

The same is true spiritually. When life overwhelms us, we learn where our anchor really lies. Mine is in the One who walks on water and says, "Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid."

Reflection Questions

1. Looking back over your own recent season, where do you now see God's fingerprints that you missed in the moment?

2. What would change if you stopped waiting for the storm to pass and started looking for Jesus in the middle of it?

3. How might the overflow of what you're learning become a gift to someone else who is drowning in their own waves?

A Final Prayer

Lord, thank You for being present in every wave, through the grief, the joy, the weariness, and the rest. Thank You for sustaining me when I had nothing left to give. Help me keep my eyes on You, not on the size of the waves. Use whatever You have taught me in this season to encourage someone else. In Jesus' name, Amen.

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