Welcome Home...

"Welcome Home!" has been uttered a LOT this week here on Bison Hill! From the moment our new students step on campus, we never STOP welcoming them home! This isn't just a university where you get in and get out with a degree and never look back... This place really IS a home!! I've only been on Bison Hill for a year now, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lord placed me here for a reason. That I couldn't possibly be this happy anywhere else!

When the new freshmen got here, my heart started beating a mile a minute!! I was so excited to welcome them to campus!! Not just to move them in and send them to class. No, my heart started pounding because I was about to meet my NEW FAMILY!! How could I not be excited?! Over 500 new brothers and sisters joining me in the place that I yearn to be when I'm anywhere else. This past week, I was blessed to lead around a group of super rad freshmen with a great friend of mine. We were privileged to show them around campus, town, and help acclimate them to their new home! I can't wait to strengthen these friendships that I've made this past week and walk through this journey with my new family. They seem cool enough, but I can't wait to REALLY know them!! To get out of the "awkward family reunion" stage and into the loving family dynamic that OBU really is.

Not only am I stoked to be back at school and loving on my new family... But I can't wait to get home to my Shawnee church!! Every Sunday morning, Josh takes the stage and calls out, "Welcome Home, Calvary Baptist Church!" to which we all respond in unison, "Thanks! It's great to be home!" And when I first started attending church there, that always made me laugh. I thought it was the strangest thing I had ever heard... But then I started getting to know the people sitting next to me in the pew. The old ladies that would hug a random stranger as if it were her favorite grandchild. The little kids that run into your arms like you're the best big sister in the world. Yes, Calvary really is home. Bison Hill really is home. And yes, my hometown really is home, too.

When I first moved away, when I went back to OKC for the weekend, I'd always say "I'm going home!" But after a while, when I was leaving OKC to head back to Shawnee, I'd find myself saying "I'm headed back home, mom." At first I'd always correct myself: no, Shawnee was where I went to school... Not my home. But then the Lord started to speak into my heart... "Shelby, your heart can be in more places than one. In fact, I made you that way! You were not made for this earth. Your heart shouldn't be in just one place. Home is wherever you feel My love, My presence, My peace. Your home is where I AM." And I cannot tell you how beautiful, freeing, and wonderful it is to know that my permanent home is in Heaven with my Lord and Savior... But in the mean time, I get to experience His love and His presence wherever I am. And wherever He is, I can find my home.

One day I hope to move to New Orleans and love on the beautiful people there. I left a chunk of my heart in New Orleans in 2012 and I just haven't got it back. It made it's home there and I can't wait to follow it. So yeah, my home is here in Shawnee. My home is at Calvary. My home is in OKC. My home is in New Orleans. My home is with the Lord. And I am so blessed to call Him my Dwelling Place.

Shelby
Ezekiel 37:27