a part of me still remains here

Sunday morning
2:34 a.m

Can't sleep.
Might as well do something.

It's really quiet in this motel room as well it should be at 2:30 in the morning.  Most normal people are sound asleep now, resting up and recharging their brains for the day ahead.  Mine told me an hour ago that it had reached "full power", I guess.  Rather than continue to toss and turn in bed, I just made the decision to get up and write.  I'm hoping this will be the ticket to get back to sleep in just a short while.

Time will tell.
We shall see.

Mike and I are home in Kansas for a very short time.  We left our home along the Red River about 6:30 a.m. yesterday and made the easy drive northward to a place that has meant so much to me.  I've been gone now for well over 3 years and each time I return my goal is to soak up as much of "home" as I can before I need to return to my new home in Texas.

So much about this town has changed.
So much remains just as I always remembered it.

This has been the first visit back to Hutch since I left that I didn't run into someone who I knew. Usually before, I could count on seeing an old friend at the grocery store or at the local gas station. Not this time.  I'm not sure that has much meaning other than people I once knew weren't running the same route as I was yesterday.  Before we leave this morning, I may yet have the chance to have an unexpected visit with someone.

I always refer to that pleasant opportunity by one name.
I call it a "God thing".

I have gazed at all of the houses and stores that we have driven by here in town.  It was fun to read the signs, especially those that announced upcoming events.  It's been entertaining to listen to what people are saying in the stores as we shop or wait to go through the check out line.  There has to be a smile on my face while I do so.  They are talking about my town, a place where I spent a whole lot of time.  I want to say, "Hey I know what you are talking about!  I used to live here."

But I don't.
I have a new home now.

As we were driving along yesterday and visiting some of the places that I always loved to frequent, I told Mike that a part of me still missed this place.  It's not the same kind of longing that I once had, especially at first.  Yet it is there and I cannot deny its existence.  There is something about being here that continues to tug at my heart and perhaps that is for good reason.

A part of me still remains here.
It's the piece of my tender heart that I left behind.

In just a few hours more, we will be on the way back home again to a very wonderful life upon the plains of Texas.  There is a new home there, a much different community, climate not like the one I'm used to here, a boy I used to know from the "land of long ago and far, far away", and 19 eight and nine-year olds who call me "teacher".  I'm actually doing very well in my new life and for that I give thanks.

The Lord has been good to me.
I cannot complain.

Maybe you have been just like me.  Perhaps you uprooted yourself from a place of familiarity and began a new life in a land quite removed from the one you were used to.  From time to time, even you might feel the longing that I sometimes do to return to the place of your birth.  I don't think that's a bad thing.  As a matter of fact, it seems perfectly normal to me.  Sometimes you just have to go "home" for a spell and so that's what you do.

You go home.
You find the place where you left a whole bunch of yourself at.

Sunday morning
3:00 a.m.

It did the trick.
Time to get some sleep.

It was the view looking up one summer's day a couple of years ago in Montrose, Colorado.  The same God who watched over me in Kansas went with me to the Rocky Mountains, and then the plains of the great Lone Star state.  No need to worry about how I am doing.  I'm in the best of hands.

His.