caught between a rock and buffalo...

i've been going over and over it in my head for the past couple hours. do i go home this weekend? seems like a simple decision right? well not really. this would be my first time home since christmas. my first non-holiday trip home in almost a year. a friend was going to come with me but now it's all me. what's here for me if i stay? getting to go see my friends band...predictability...even within dysfunction, not spending money on gas. predictable dysfunction is highly preferrable to the unknown sometimes.

what's at home for me? unknown... what do you do when you come to the realization that there is no home at home anymore. my mom's boyfriend's kids will be there for the weekend, occupying what was my room..what is now their's...potential for arguments, rehashing of old wounds... but it's my family, and i love them. i feel like i'm standing alone on the battleground, facing a great wall of spiritual warfare. do i turn back? retreat? go back to my camp where maybe it's not perfect but i'll know what to expect. or do i take on the wall? knowing that i don't go alone but with an army of saints around me, and i stand firm and confident with the armor i wear. the most heartfelt prayer i've heard in a long time came from Ian at cell group on tuesday about me going home. he prayed that i would know that i wasn't going alone, but they, my community and their prayers were going with me. are we called to stay where things are comfortable to us? no. christ prayed not that we would be sheltered from the things of this world but instead that we would be protected from the evil one as we went out. this is my past, while maybe it's not in whole who i am anymore, it's where i came from and because of that it is a part of me, in all it's messiness and splendor, it will ALWAYS be where i came from.

i face being a week away from being baptized, presenting myself before the throne of God and being washed clean, being proclaimed as a new creation. i think it's time to go home, and say goodbye to the pieces of my past, to the pieces of me that i'm choosing to leave behind as i place my foot in the river. yes, yes i think it's time to go home.
breaking chains. there is freedom here.