Finding Our Way Home

When you turn to the right or turn to the left, you will hear his voice behind you to guide you, saying, “This is the right path; follow it.”

Isaiah 30:21 TPT

As we approach Easter this coming Sunday, I have fond memories of family gatherings and especially of Easter egg hunts. Like so many parents, Margo and I would fill those little plastic eggs with chocolate and jellybeans and hide them around the house and backyard. There were always a couple of eggs with the biggest treasures inside that were more difficult to find than others, so we would follow behind our kids whispering if they were getting warmer or colder in their quest until they found them. 

Those Easter egg hunts remind me of this verse of the Bible and what God does in our quest to find him. He tells us throughout our lives if we are going in the right direction, if we are getting warmer or colder. He wants us to find our way home to him. That search is vividly illustrated in the story of Elaine T. 

Elaine’s journey home to God started in the Philippines, where she was born. Her parents left her when she was five years old to come to the United States. It wasn’t until she was 14 years old that she was able to join them here in the Bay Area. And, as is true for many of us, what she thought was security and home was soon shattered as her parents divorced.  

She thought she would build her own home when she was still very young, so she married and had a daughter. But, without an example of how to make a home and a family, parenting was very hard. She struggled with a strained and distant relationship with her daughter for 28 years. Elaine felt that she always had to be strong and make it on her own, so her heart was guarded and became hard.

Back Home To You

Then I can show to other guilty ones how loving and merciful you are. They will find their way back home to you, knowing that you will forgive them.

Psalm 51:13 TPT

Through it all, God kept reaching out to Elaine. The first connection came at Rich and Antonette Hua’s birthday party, where Elaine met friends whom God would use to help her find her way to him. She started building spiritual friendships through Let’s Talk Nights, the Pumpkin Spice Women’s Night, and church. To her surprise, she saw Teresa Casey at some of these events, who is actually her cousin and they have been at many family gatherings together. God was definitely bringing her home. 

Elaine studied the Bible and learned more about God’s unfailing love, and the walls around her heart started to fall. She was getting warmer. Continuing to study the Bible, Elaine was baptized earlier this year and, as she put it, “I learned I was looking for God but in all of the wrong places. Now I have finally found a home.”

Elaine is now excited to build her home God’s way with her husband and son. In addition, she has reconnected with her daughter and they are building a much closer and more honest relationship. She has also reconnected with other family members and now some of them have started studying the Bible themselves. 

Elaine’s story is an illustration to us of how God is always helping us find our way home to him.  So, this Easter, whether we are eating chocolate bunnies or searching for hidden eggs, let’s listen to that voice behind us telling us if we are getting warmer or colder because God is always trying to lead us and others back home to him. 

Please join us to celebrate Easter this coming Sunday at any of our service locations in the Bay Area. 

Till next week,

Scott and Margo Colvin

South Bay Ministry Leaders