Home is Where the Heart Is

It's funny. For a long time I considered San Antonio my home. Even after Luke and I were married and living in our very own apartment in Tulsa, I still had an overwhelming feeling of "home" when we would drive/fly into SA! I loved our friends and life in Tulsa, but I longed to be closer to my family here in Texas. I prayed that God would allow us to move, but each time in my heart I knew that He still had plans for us in Tulsa. Not long after we'd been married a year, I was still struggling somewhat with this desire. Luke had told me that if I really wanted to move back, he would make it happen. However, as much as I wanted to say yes, I did not have a peace about that decision. So instead we bought our first house. At the time, and still when I look back, I know without a doubt that God blessed our obedience. We each made a list of our wants and needs for our new house and set out one Saturday with our realtor to look at a long list of homes...both old and new. We ended up just north of Tulsa in a little suburb known as Owasso, Oklahoma. Toward the end of the day, we walked into an almost finished new house. I loved it even before we saw the inside because it had red brick with wide black shutters. The 3 bedroom 2 bath house was pretty much a blank canvas on the inside since they hadn't done any of the cosmetic stuff yet. We looked around and looked at our list and quickly realized this was the house God had for us. So on our first day of house hunting we found the first place we would officially call home.

It was so much fun picking out light fixtures, appliances, and even fencing. The end product, as a friend once said, had the "Keiffer" stamp on it. We started saving for non-college, grown up furniture and began making memories in a house that was everything we had prayed and hoped for.

Not long after Austin was born I came down to visit in San Antonio for a couple of weeks. It was on this trip that I realized somewhere along the way Tulsa had become my home. I no longer felt the feeling of "home" flying into San Antonio, instead that feeling overtook me flying back into Tulsa. I couldn't wait to get Austin and I home to Luke and Savannah. And just like God, that's when He chose to grant the desire of my heart. About a month later our first house was on the market and we were packing up and getting ready to move to San Antonio! Again, we could so clearly see God's hand in every detail. Our house sold in one week to the first couple that came to look at it. Miraculously, all of our stuff fit in the moving truck, trailer, blazer, and escape. (Yes, God did bless our saving efforts and we had filled our rooms with grown-up furniture!) And our moving package was better than we expected!

On that last day, as I looked around at our empty house, my mind played all the memories back as if I was watching them on a movie screen. Our first night in our first house, hanging out with friends, bringing Savannah home for the first time, finding out I was pregnant, getting "snowed in" for a week, and bringing Austin home from the hospital to name a few. I was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of sadness as we locked up and headed over to the hotel for our last night in Owasso. A simple act of obedience had led to a multitude of blessings. God had taken my homesickness for a chapter in my life that was closed and gave me a place to call home full of laughter, tears, and memories.

There are so many wonderful things we would have missed had God followed my plan. So many relationships and precious memories that we would not have. Words cannot express how thankful I am that He knew and I obeyed! Now that we're settled in San Antonio I find myself missing Tulsa the way I used to miss San Antonio, but loving the fact that we're here again. I've come to the conclusion that home IS where your heart is...and mine just happens to be in 2 places.

Thank you, Jesus, for the memories I cherish in my heart from Tulsa. What a special time it was and I am grateful for the lessons you taught me about Yourself. Go before Luke and I here in San Antonio so that this city can also be full of fun memories and close friends. When I miss the comfort and familiarity of our life in Tulsa, remind me that You've brought us this far and You still have wonderful things ahead!