This has been a season of travel for me. A back and forth between the different aspects of my life that somehow seem to merge together into family and ministry and work and service. And as much as I love travel, I’m a homebody at heart.

I love to come home. I love that when I come home the first thing I do is kiss kids in various states of cleanliness and consciousness. They’re bundled in and bundled off to wherever they’re expected to be and my home reacquaintance begins.

There’s laundry and tidying and getting of groceries. Emails to reply to, bills to pay, recycling to deal with. All of those things that settle you back into the space where you haven’t been.

There’s a meditative quality to settling back into our spaces. A learned rhythm of routine and need and necessity.

The final settling in for me is wiping down my counters. The cleaning away of the debris, large and tiny, that has collected upon the surface.

There are also times in my life where I need a spiritual reacquaintance after an absence. A slipping out of routine, a time away, a space where I haven’t been as closely connected to God as I would like to be.

And not through anything large and looming, just a slide into busyness, early mornings spent in commute rather than Scripture.

It’s interesting to compare the two. Do I lament the messiness of my spiritual house when I return from a time away? Is there cleaning to be done, tidying, roaming through the space of my heart and soul to see where the cobwebs have grown?

This is a place that could easily flow into guilt, couldn’t it? Just like if we’re overwhelmed by the chores and mess that accumulate as we are outside of tending them. All we see is the mess and not the home and hearth that lie beneath.

There’s so much to do before we can settle in to being comfortable again! All of the things must be right and situated and proper before we can feel right again. But it’s too much, sometimes.

We become overwhelmed with our own mess and can’t seem to start so that we can get close to God.

This flows much farther than a simple reacquaintance. We might feel there are barriers between us and what God wants from us. Maybe we’re not ‘in the right spiritual space’ to consider being worthy of getting baptized. Maybe our house and hearts feel too messy to offer hospitatlity to another.

Whatever it is, there is always that last spiritual sock covered in dust bunnies that slinks into the corner of our soul. And if just, if just everything was gone, then we could begin fresh.

But what I’ve come to understand, both practically and spiritually, is that the clean counters are the last thing to come.

Because the beginning steps to reconnection with God don’t come with our pristine selves. It comes with the re-engagement of relationship.

As we re-enter the door, we focus on the welcoming embrace that greets us. We reconnect with our hearts and our actions follow. It’s no accident that the first thing I do is greet my family. Ignore the laundry and embrace the snuggles.

Because I’ve done it the other way. I’ve focused on the need for cleaning and in the midst, forgot that it was the relationships that keep me going. I’ve felt the pressure of perfection and lost the preciousness of presence.

Relationship brings restoration.

And so it is with God. Those things that have built up in my absence from him cannot be cleaned until I fall into his loving embrace. Until I remember who he is, what he thinks of me, and where my heart finds its true belonging.

It is there that the burdens become lighter, the paths become clearer, and the darkness becomes light. In his presence, where we are loved, known, cherished, challenged, and most of all, welcomed.

If I could have one prayer for us all this week, dear friends, it is that we remember our welcome. Relax, put down the dust cloth and your spiritual load of dirty laundry. Settle in, reconnect, and be at home.