Following A Cloud | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Following A Cloud | Previous Challenge Entry
By Linda Lawrence
07/15/20
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Flexible

My father had what he called an “eagle’s heart”—a heart always on the move, hoping to find happiness, a place that felt like home. His imagination soared, thinking it may be just over the next mountain. However, moving his family from place to place meant constantly changing schools. I attended fifteen schools in twelve years.

From my beginning, God knew the plans He had for my future—plans for good. As a child, I had difficulty recognizing the good of first-day-at-a-new-school jitters, the good of humiliations of not knowing the rules or routines, the good of having to leave friends behind.

But, in actuality, it was great preparation for the life I married into, singing “Whither thou goest, I will go. . .” My husband was a missionary with the Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC). We married quickly because he was told he was being sent to the Philippines in three months. When that three months became three years, the acronym FEBC quickly took on a new meaning: For Ever Being Changed.

Yes, twenty more moves over the next twenty years with FEBC made me flexible, learning to adapt quickly to each new situation because we might be on the move again in six months.

During a lifetime of having no control over where I would live, the Lord was teaching me that He was my home, whether that was in a tent or a trailer, a duplex or an apartment, a garage or a house. If He was with me, home was San Francisco or Whittier, Hong Kong or Okinawa, Seoul or Suwan, Quezon City or Valenzuela Bulacan.

When I was on the verge of hardening my heart to any more moves, the Lord graciously intervened by showing me He identified me with the Levites, whose portion and inheritance was not in a place, but in Himself. To be responsible for carrying the Presence of God whenever the FEBC “cloud” moved, became more than a metaphor. It became a growing reality. Although I lived as a nomad, the Lord was always with me.

On my 35th birthday I realized I was living in my 35th dwelling. But the roaming days were over. My husband joined Haven of Rest, a radio ministry aptly named as far as our moving around was concerned. I rested and nested, although my husband continued to travel around the world over the next 20 years.

To have lived the last 25 years in one place has also taken some adapting. I don’t want to become so content that I’m complacent—or resistant to change.

But unlike my dad’s “eagle’s heart”, my heart found its true home. Not in a place or a house but in the plan of God. In Christ. Being His tabernacle, flexible enough to be led by a cloud—the very breath of God.

Memoir

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