Exiled

Dear Old Friend,

I was reading these verses from Lamentations 5 the other day,

“Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
look, and see our disgrace!
Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
our homes to foreigners.
We have become orphans, fatherless….”

…and I got a knot in my stomach because I was reminded of a painful time in my life; one which you helped me through.  My parents had separated and agreed to sell my childhood home.  I had pleaded, argued, cried and declared that I would not move; but, inevitably, my protestations were to no avail.  It was summer, and arrangements had been made for the move to occur during my annual week at a church camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

I’m sure that everyone’s intentions were to try and make the transition as easy as possible for me, so when I left for camp the moving process had not yet started.  Nothing had even been put in boxes. Although, intellectually, I understood that I would be coming home to a new apartment which I had never seen, emotionally my twelve year old brain had not been prepared for that fact.  In hindsight, it probably would have been better if I had been allowed to watch the house become less and less like my home; but, when I walked out my front door for the last time, I had the illusion that my home was still intact and would be awaiting my return.

I remember nothing about the week at camp, but I do remember your parents picking both of us up from the camp bus drop-off and explaining to me that they were going to take me to the apartment.  I have to admit I was grateful that you were going to be with me!  Your parents tried to make the best of the situation, cheerfully asking if I was excited.  Excited wasn’t really the word.  Distraught and a bit nauseous were the words.  It was surreal.  I was being asked to accept that my home with the big treed yard, where I had lived since I was four, was gone without a proper goodbye and to pretend that this box-like apartment I saw when we pulled up was now home. 

We parked in the lot and lugged my suitcase up the stairs and through the metal front door, which closed with a hollow bang.  And there, in this foreign place, were my mother and all of our familiar belongings, looking very much out of place.  My mother urged me to go with you to see my new room which was all set up with my white French provincial bedroom furniture and my bed with the purple canopy. You dutifully oohed and aahed at how nice it was, and then your parents murmured that they had to be going, and soon the hollow bang of the door sounded again as you left.

You know all of that.  What you don’t know is that the recurring nightmares began soon thereafter and continued for many years.  In them, I would always go back to my old house where someone else now lived, but they were not at home so I would sneak inside.  Everything was exactly as I remembered, except that it belonged to another family.  I was always in the process of looking around when suddenly I heard a car door slam, voices and then footsteps.  I was terrified that I would be discovered and tried desperately to hide…and then I would wake up, heart pounding.

I felt somewhat like Jeremiah must have felt when he wrote those verses in Lamentations:  Exiled from my home which was now inhabited by strangers, feeling disgraced and alone.  

After several months in the apartment I developed a habit of going for a walk in the evenings after dinner.  Nearby was a neighborhood of houses with yards.  I liked going there at twilight when the lights were coming on inside.  As I walked down the sidewalk I could see what I imagined were happy families in their happy homes.  To this day, early autumn twilight brings back those feelings of longing and loneliness.

Years later, when my own marriage ended under circumstances similar to my parents’, and I moved out of the apartment which my husband and I had shared, I experienced the very same nightmares regarding that apartment as I’d had when I left my childhood home. 

During both of those periods of my life, God graciously gave me his precious assurance that no matter what was going on, no matter where I was and no matter how I felt, he would be with me.


As I got older I tried to make my own happy home.  We all do, of course. There's nothing wrong with that. But, no matter what, I always felt like there was something missing. 

In John chapter 14 Jesus promises he will not leave us as orphans.  He tells us that if we love him, he and the Father will come to us and will make their home with us, here and now, and then one day he will take us to our eternal home.  That is the home we have all been searchng for;  and it's one which can never be taken away.

I take such comfort in that promise!

Love Always,

Bonnie