{"id":1328,"date":"2017-12-28T21:33:52","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T02:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joshuastairhime.com\/?p=1328"},"modified":"2018-12-04T23:01:26","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T04:01:26","slug":"home-at-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.joshuastairhime.com\/index.php\/home-at-last\/","title":{"rendered":"Home at Last (DOP #20 2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

concluded from previous…<\/em><\/p>\n

Home I<\/a><\/p>\n

Home II<\/a><\/p>\n

I had made some pretty crazy choices in the months leading up to getting the bus, but I knew that I hadn’t changed enough.\u00a0 It wasn’t enough to simply buy a bus, I had to take some sort of action to ensure that it wouldn’t just become another project that gets pushed to the side and never finished.\u00a0 If I wanted a home, I couldn’t stop pursuing it yet.\u00a0\u00a0So as October drew to a close and the end of the year drew near, I contemplated doing something a bit crazy again.<\/p>\n

Remember the girl I mentioned in the previous post?\u00a0 Well, while I was trying to change my own life, God had plans of his own.\u00a0 I had been a terrible boyfriend in a previous long term relationship, and when that relationship finally ended, I was pretty much resolved to go it alone from then on.\u00a0 I had held on for so long in hopes that I could make it work, that I could be different than I was, but it wasn’t until I finally burnt that relational bridge that I felt any peace about it.\u00a0 Once I had committed to a new way of life, little things in my life began to change.\u00a0 Addictions that had held me for decades fell away overnight.\u00a0 I still wasn’t happy, and I still wasn’t healthy, but I had finally been turned around and set on a new path.\u00a0 I resolved to be single, as I didn’t trust myself to be more than that.<\/p>\n

The girl in the previous post is now my fiance.\u00a0 God had his own plans.<\/p>\n

In November, we started going on dates.\u00a0 On December 14th, I started an account to save for a ring.\u00a0 On December 24th I asked her to officially be my girlfriend, and on December 28th I moved out of my apartment.<\/p>\n

I moved into my truck.<\/p>\n

Somehow, I had felt that God was going to teach me something, and that he needed me to be homeless in order to accomplish it.\u00a0 So, more because it sounded like a great adventure than a desire to be obedient, I moved out of my apartment.\u00a0 I burned the bridge to the only place I had ever lived on my own.\u00a0 I spent the first few weeks in my cargo trailer with a propane heater and my 0 degree sleeping bag.\u00a0 After getting ice rained inside of it in a Menards parking lot a few weeks later, I chose to abandon the trailer and move into the truck.\u00a0 I showered every couple of days at a 24 hour gym, doing my best to avoid suspicion as I headed straight for the shower each time I got there.\u00a0 I ate\u00a0far<\/em> too much fast food in this past year, and I learned to stash snacks in my truck.\u00a0 I woke up many mornings in a new place, and occasionally didn’t remember where I was, or what I was doing there.\u00a0 I sweated through the heat of summer and shivered through the cold of winter.<\/p>\n

It is December 28th today.\u00a0 I’ve lived in my truck for over a year.<\/p>\n

I have learned so much.\u00a0 I now know more fully what a home is, and I am\u00a0more\u00a0<\/em>convinced than ever that it has nothing to do with 4 walls, a shower, and a roof.\u00a0 \u00a0Home is not a building.\u00a0 Home is not a place.\u00a0 Home is where you find peace.\u00a0 Home is where you go when everything else is falling apart and you are afraid that you’ll never find peace again.<\/p>\n

For me, home is where Samantha is.\u00a0 I’ve found in her someone who has accepted that I am more than a bit odd.\u00a0 She has accepted that sometimes I do crazy things.\u00a0 When I told her I was buying a bus on our very first date, and she didn’t refuse to return my messages, I knew that I had found someone special.\u00a0 When I told her that just days after we officially became boyfriend and girlfriend that I would be moving out, she accepted it and loved me in spite of it.\u00a0 I find more peace with her than I have found with any other person in my life.\u00a0 Home is not a place, it is the people in it.\u00a0 Your home can be church, school, work, or any number of other places if you find peace there.<\/p>\n

Now that a year has passed, I’ve given up my wandering ways, and I will be moving in to a rental home in a few weeks.\u00a0 I’ll live there in that house until Samantha comes to join me in roughly 4 months, and together we will make it a home.\u00a0 God has brought to me something I could not find on my own.\u00a0 Peace.<\/p>\n\n\t\t