Home and Comfort Zones

You can't tell, but under this bridge, about 4 minutes walk from my apartment, sleeps a homeless man.  I hardly recognized him as being human until I closely examined him.  As I walked by during my routine, morning walk, there he slept.  Under the bridge.  Accompanied by the smell of urine.  The traffic rumbling overhead.  His dirty socks were airing out on a ledge.  His shoes neatly aligned next to his body.  He slept in a sleeping bag.  His other belongings were gathered in a tidy form serving as a pillow.  Out of respect, I took the picture after I passed him.  I somehow wanted to preserve some sense of his dignity - one human to another.  I could give him that.

Lately my family and I have begun to struggle - for the first time since living abroad - about the concept of "home".  Where is "home"?  Honestly, we feel a bit in transition mode.  I always pay attention to this mode, knowing there is probably a healthy tension that is going to come to the surface.

I've come to believe that tension is always a way of God moving you from one comfort zone to another.  What once seemed foreign, odd, strange, awkward, not doable, impossible, really scary - becomes "normal".  Comfort zones are like invisible circles that get drawn around you.  When you expand that zone, your circle increases in size.  You are now prepared to handle another circumstance that will force you to make yet another choice.  Embrace another thing that caused you at first to tremble, allow it to be walked through, and then encounter achievement OR ... don't.  Your circle increases - OR it doesn't.

Home.  Right now it's where I am.  As I explore what that looks like - or may look like - and freak out a little about the possible expanding of a comfort zone - I will remember my fellow human.  His home is under a bridge.  It puts everything into perspective.

Grateful for clean socks,
Christina