Coming Home
My first day back in Nashville, I mapped out a route to pick up all of the items I had purchased through online yard sales.
A little context would tell you that my family had just made the decision to move home to Tennessee after following peace-filled paths over the past five years. Those five years added stamps to our passports and zip codes to our background checks that continue to impact us in the most meaningful ways. We roamed and wandered, trying to put down roots but always finding ourselves transplanted just when our heartstrings would most feel the tug of uprooting.
January of 2022 came and it was time to come home.
I was born just off West End, like just about everyone else I grew up alongside in this small-town-big-city. My first day home turned out to be a tour of all those growing up years. The addresses on the notepad there on my center console did not mean much to me as I scribbled them down. I simply turned on my most recently built playlist called “Country Roads Home” and asked the Lord to make my drive efficient. I had three of my four kiddos waiting for me back at my mama’s house.
The songs played and I drove. I smiled warmly as my first driveway pickup was in the neighborhood my parents brought me home to as a toddling girl. Back on the road, a full blown laugh burst from my smile a few times as I passed memorable parking lots and restaurants from my less-than-glorious adolescence. A puzzled and curious look crossed my face as I remembered why the next address seemed so familiar.
I slowly wound my way around a hillside church that hosted one of the most pivotal moments in my life. Tears brimmed my eyes and a softer grin graced my face as I turned my left blinker on. I pulled onto the street where I lived every other weekend before I ever knew how to drive. I could not have remembered that address or the number on that condominium door but I knew the roads. The lamp that waited for me across the street from another of my “old houses” was the last thing on my mind. Pausing in the middle of what should have been a busy street, I stared and asked the Lord, “What are you doing?”
A few moments of quiet contemplation passed and I remembered the tall lamp with the right shade waiting across the street. I loaded it in and expectantly typed in the next address. It was nearly evening on a February day and I really did hope to be home before sunset.
My GPS navigated me back towards Hillsboro Road from the edge of Brentwood and my curiosity grew. Hillboro Road eventually becomes 21st Ave and I have always said that the whole length of it feels the most like home. I did not make it more than two miles before I had to take a right down a road I had never even noticed before. All the times I had driven that route and I had never seen this hidden road that quickly turned to gravel.
Up I went, switching back and forth up thin, covered roads as the sun started to set. I pulled up to a home on the edge of a bluff to acquire three outdoor nesting tables for my future porch. It was eerily quiet and secluded, tucked on top of a hill I had never noticed. Looking up before me, there was a 180 degree view of my hometown against an orange and red sunset in the west.
I was a bit in awe. The moment felt really special but it was getting dark so I hurriedly placed the tables in the trunk and got back on the road. Something hit me as I drove away and thanked God for such an amazing day of driving all over one of my favorite places. I realized then that I had been worried Nashville would not feel like home anymore.
To be honest, that feeling of home is fleeting for me. It comes in moments and experiences with those I love but it is not something I chase after this side of heaven. Song after song tells of the feeling of home, almost always hearkening back to those first rooms, dinner tables, or porches that have residence in our memories.
I had called so many places “home” and feared that actually moving back home would feel frustratingly unfamiliar. Nashville has changed and is changing! But, so am I. How very different I am from the girl remembered along these streets I had driven.
That afternoon drive was all it took for me to realize I was not just moving home, I was being called home to Tennessee. It was intentional and God has His purposes for me here. He has had a purpose for me in every moment of my life and every place I have lived. I just needed to keep my eyes open to what would be put before me.
I started singing a few lines over and over again. A very old, familiar stir started and I asked the Lord to do something new with it. The next month was full of commuting long drives to my new job, closing on the sale of our home in Georgia, living with family while we waited for our Tennessee home purchase to be finalized, and keeping our family going in the midst of big changes. Voice notes with melodies and whispered words filled my phone along the way.
In all of my coming home, I became reacquainted with pieces of myself that had not flourished in recent seasons. I slowed down enough to engage singing for fun and for prayer instead of always to prepare or lead someone else. Music started flowing again and our new home stayed full of story songs to encourage our souls as we unpacked more than just boxes from all that these years of ministry and moving have done in us. Singing and writing was fun, again!
I nervously shared a song that was helping me to a friend going through a similar transition in her own life. Her admonishment kick started what I want to share this month. Three songs have brought particular gladness and joy to my soul in this time of coming home. Writing them, recording them with my family, and sharing them with my loved ones has been so very fun. Now, I want to share them with you!
In the same way that my first day in Nashville took me on a reflective tour down memory lane, I hope the three songs I plan to release in this Coming Home Series serve as reflective, fun, and encouraging moments to tell a small part of my story. I hope you will come along and smile once or twice along the way.
In the Love of Christ,
Hannah
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