‘I saw the light and found my way home
Thank you, Lord, Amen.’
When I heard Thomas Rhett’s song, “Country Again” last summer, I did not know where it would lead me. When I discerned that it was to be my Faith Song last year, I did not really know why. God showed me these things in his own time, and it was really hard for me to see that he was helping me find the light, helping me find my way home. But eventually, I got to the place of saying and knowing, deep in my soul, “Thank you, Lord, amen.”
I have taught theology for 13 years. Every year, I have asked my students to write a reflective paper in which they choose a “Faith Song,” a song that illustrates where they are in their relationship with God. In order to help them do this, I model it for them: I reflect on my faith journey and where I am in my relationship with God–noticing where God is working in my life, where God is in my relationships, where God is leading me. Each year as I have done this, I have tried to let God teach me through the song that resonated with me most. This year, I had no idea how big the lesson was going to be.
Last September, I did what I always did with my faith song: I played it in class for my sophomores. I played it in four different classes on two different days, and I stood back and let them write about their own lives and relationships while they listened. And as I stood in the corner, letting the song and the Holy Spirit lead my class, I teared up at the same place every time: “I traded sunsets with my wife, for hours on my phone. And even when I was right beside her, I wasn’t really home. But last night we built a fire, watched the moonlight kiss her skin…Man, it feels good to be country again.”
I thought I knew what wisdom God was offering me through this song. “Being country again”, finding my way home, was about my loved ones. My husband, my boys, and myself. I knew that much, and it felt like enough. It felt like God calling me back to myself, and I settled there. I settled for what I already knew about myself, for the piece of the truth that I was comfortable with, for the challenge I had already been working on: trying to be more present to my loved ones. After all, it brought tears to my eyes, so that was obviously where God was calling me. And that was far enough for me to go.
But two weeks later, I went further. I went “further up and further in”, as CS Lewis says, into what God was trying to tell me. Going further was not deliberate, at least not on my side. I would find out it was very deliberate on God’s.
I found that the wisdom I thought I was living into–just loving my family where we were at–was not the full extent of where God was leading me. Instead, God led me into a quandary through which, on the other side, I am changing my job, leaving my neighborhood, emigrating from my city…and moving to the country. Moving to five acres on the Deschutes river in central Oregon. Leaving the place I’ve grown up, the school I have loved, the profession that has grown me. It turns out, as I’ve always known but am always learning deeper, the gifts of the Holy Spirit have layers to them: I might understand a piece of this now, but I will understand more and more pieces as I move forward, especially if I keep myself open to the unpeeling of our layers: the Holy Spirit’s and mine.
In the months since I realized that “Country Again” was my faith song, my life has altered dramatically. What I thought was my reality is changed. What I thought was my path of growth is not. What I thought was my family’s future is transfigured. I had it in mind to make small adjustments–lean into family time, don’t work so much, keep the house a little cleaner. What God had in mind was something much bigger, much more tumultuous, and so much more full of life.
I see now that the life we were living was sucking us dry. It was not enriching; it was surviving. And it may not have been even that for long. But we–I–was stuck in it. I might have kept my family in that life that was not healthy for us forever, because I could always find enough reasons to stay. I was worshipping the status quo because it had been status quo for so long, and there had been good in that status quo, so we had to stick with it. Thinking about this now makes me think, I do not know what I was thinking. But I do know, without a doubt, that if circumstances had not pushed me to change our life, the status quo would have ruled us forever.
My oldest son thrives in the woods. His heart explodes there; his imagination dances there; he comes alive there. He is HIMSELF more there than anywhere else. And yet we trapped him in the suburbs and in club soccer and in school uniforms. My husband comes back from the woods smelling like the best part of high school: the boys coming in after practice, changing the air around them into the tang of outside and cold and hard work and exhausted contentment and sweat. My dog runs until she collapses; my two younger boys create and find and dig and wrestle and run raucous until they settle into stillness. There is no place we get along better than the woods and there is no place we are more ourselves.
So of course “Country Again” was my song. Of course what we needed was for God to drop kick us out of regimented schools and ratrace cities and tight suburbs. I found again, as I have learned so many times, that the wisdom I thought was the whole was not even close to what God had in store for us. And so, we are living into it. We try to live it every day, as we pack up our house and change jobs and try to find the right words and moments to help other people understand our decision.
A year ago, my brother talked to me. He talked to me about the mental health struggles I had had, the anxiety that creeps up on my husband, how wound tight my oldest was. He talked about lifestyles and pressure and raising a family and choices. Then he said something that has played in my mind for the past year, sometimes like a mantra: “If I were you, Tina, I’d make a change. I’d make it drastic. And I’d make it soon.”
God was speaking to us then. He was leading us then, giving us a first nudge. More came and, because we responded, a little bit of clarity, of light for the next step, began to glimmer. That is how we walk now: with enough light for the next step. We do not see everything in front of us, but we see enough, and once we take this step, there will be light for another. More than ever before, I am living into Jeremiah’s encouragement: “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope.”
When it seems like “Country Again” is over, there is one last line, that is not part of the chorus, the verses, or the bridge. It is tacked onto the end of the song, and I thought nothing of it when I shared the song with my students. I wasn’t ready for that bit of wisdom yet; I did not have the light for that step yet. But now, it is my favorite part of the song. Now, it is where my eyes well up with tears. After it seems that Thomas Rhett is done singing, he lullabies, “I saw the light and found my way home. Thank you, God, Amen.
“It sure feels good to be country again.”
It is where God is leading me, it is the path of wisdom he has laid before me, and I will continue to try to follow.
Some questions for reflection:
What have you lost that maybe you shouldn’t have let go?
Where do you feel a tug at your heart to go toward something that is you?
What things are really important in life? Where might God be nudging you toward what is really important?
If you choose to write as you reflect, consider listening to these songs as you write:
“Country Again” by Thomas Rhett
“Great Light of the World” by Bebo Norman
Maybe also light a candle, to remind you that wherever you are, God is IN that, with you.
Go in peace and love, and seek to live as real as possible today.