Richelle Hofer

We are moving. We’re leaving the home we’ve been in for 14 years. Fourteen years. That is literally the longest I’ve ever lived in the same place in my entire life. Growing up I moved a lot – I think four years was the longest I’d ever lived anywhere (that was from birth to age four. Ha!)

When you’re a kid, moving a lot means changing schools a lot – and sometimes those changes were kind of traumatic. I was in first grade when I made a vow to myself: “I would not make my kids change schools.” And I kept that vow. My boys both started kindergarten and graduated from the same school.

But now – here we are. The kids are done with school, my office is 30 miles away, and when my husband left his job with the city, there was really no reason to make that commute every day. So we made a practical decision to move closer to my office.

Logical.

We found a home that we love just minutes from my office, but it needs a little TLC. And so we’ve parked ourselves in a cute little rental house for a few months while we complete some projects at the new house.

Done deal. Easy peasy. Logical. Practical. AND… completely emotional.

Yesterday I stood in my empty house and cried for probably an hour.

There’s nothing really special about my house. It is pretty modest, but I loved it. I thought I’d live there forever. I thought my boys would bring their wives and kids there for holidays. I thought my husband and I would retire there. I thought that every chapter of my life would be in that house.

There is pretty much no part of my life today that looks the same as it did 7 years ago. Both of my boys graduated, my career changed, my dad passed away, my community changed. My house was pretty much the only thing that remainded constant. No matter what was happening, I pulled into the same driveway at the end of the day and I went into the same house. This was the place that felt safe and steady even if everything else was shifting wildly.

And now… now I’m walking through that familar place and my footsteps echo off the ceilings. It’s empty. And in a minute I will drive out of the driveway for the final time.

As I leave, my phone dings the familiar “motion in your driveway” notification. And I just can’t stop the tears.

I’m driving down the road feeling.. “untethered”. That’s the best way I can describe it. It was just this deep realization that NOTHING is permanent. EVERYTHING – even things you thought would be forever – can change in a flash.

Man, that feeling sucks.

We make plans, we have intentions, we make vows. But literally nothing is guaranteed… everything in this whole world is subject to change. No matter how much we plan, and create contingencies. No matter how many vows we make. It can all just blow away.

That is reality. If you dwell on it, it feels pretty hopeless. And as I drove back to the rental, I was indeed dwelling on it.

I would have been driving in silence, but my phone automatically connects to my car when I get in so I had music in the background. I wasn’t paying any attention to it, until I heard the words “in my Father’s house”…

Those words snapped me out of the mental space I was in. “In my Father’s house…”

It is true that every earthly home is temporary. We spend so much of our lives trying to create permanence in a world that straight up cannot offer it.

But I think that’s exactly why Scripture continually points us toward something greater… the only thing that truly lasts.

Psalm 62:5 is probably my all time favorite verse. It says: “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him.” Not from keeping everything exactly the way it is. My hope comes from Him. Hard stop.

It’s one of my favorite verses because it gives me peace everytime I’ve felt like I’m in turmoil. And for whatever reason, I just can’t get it through my thick skull. LOL.

For years I’ve prayed a sort of weird prayer. I have prayed that God would “reveal me to myself”. God knows what I mean (ha!). I have seen so many people go through life ignoring major personal problems. I know we all have blindspots, so I’m always asking God to show me mine. I really WANT Him to, but it’s really painful when He does.

I was thinking about Psalm 62:5 when another verse came to mind. Jeremiah 29:11. We all know it – it’s quoted about as much as John 3:16. But it was only really recently that I learned the CONTEXT of this verse:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

These words came from a prophet just after the Israelites got captured by Babylon. Babylon was the most brutal empire in that time. Imagine being captured by people that everyone feared. I think it’s safe to say that the lives of the Israelites had been turned upside down. Their homes were gone, plans shattered. I’m guessing that nothing looked familiar.

God didn’t say to them “don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here and everything will go back to the way it was”. In fact (are you ready for this?) in verse four He basically says: hey, I’m actually the one who brought you here.

Seriously? Yes, seriously. The Israelites had a lot to learn and maybe the only way to get them to listen and seek God with their whole hearts (vs 12-14) was to let everything that was familiar get stripped away. He had good plans for them – but maybe He had to get their attention first.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not trying to compare selling my house to getting taken captive by some terrorists. We’re excited and I think the next chapter is going to be great. But this move is showing me something important.

I had accidentally placed some of my trust in something temporary.

Again.

I don’t know if that’s why we’re moving. Maybe it’s just a practical decision made by two adults who got tired of driving 30 miles to work. Or maybe God is using a practical decision to reveal something I couldn’t see while I was standing in that driveway.

Maybe He is reminding me that my refuge was never that house.

It was Him.

My real home isn’t the house I just sold. It isn’t the rental we’re living in. It isn’t even the beautiful house we’re renovating.

My real home is in my Father’s house.