I'm Guest Posting for Jen Michel this week!
/Hi there! This week I'm guest posting over at
. If you haven't yet read Jen's book,
, you really need to get it, read it, and soak it in. It was selected as the Christianity Today Book of the Year for 2015--need I say more?
Jen has a new book coming out next spring titled,
Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home
. I'm honored to be sharing some thoughts on home with Jen's readers this week. Here's the beginning of my post, but
to read the whole thing.
*****
2355 N. Higgins Road, Morris, IL
Tiny pink tulips arranged in rows, wound through with green ribbon. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
This was the pattern of the wallpaper in my bedroom of our hundred-year-old farmhouse. I memorized the pattern of that wallpaper, stared at it for countless hours as I tried to fall asleep to the sounds of crickets chirping and the breeze rustling through the tall tassels on the cornstalks just outside my window.
Growing up on a farm was a lonely experience for me. Even though I was an introverted bookworm, I always wanted neighbors. People whom I could greet on the street and who would keep watch over my house at night. I wanted to know what life was like beyond those cornfields for people who were different from me.
Besides the wallpaper, I often stared at the back of my bedroom door, which I had plastered with the names of places I had cut from the headlines of the Travel section in each Sunday’s
Chicago Tribune
. There, in bold letters, I read and re-read the names of places I longed to see.
“ROME!”
“LONDON”
“The Swiss Alps”
“L.A.”
“Copenhagen is for Lovers!”
“BAVARIA”
The back of my door was covered with place names, dreams that would carry me through turbulent high school years.
*****
Read the rest of the post
