Do you ever get homesick?

Part 2 of our Gritty Faith Magazine Anniversary Series Release
​In honor of the first anniversary of Gritty Faith, we are doing a series release of articles published within the pages of Gritty Faith over this last year. We hope you enjoy these snippets from Gritty Faith Magazine and we hope you consider subscribing to support the voices being shared here.

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Home
Creative Communion Column by Brianna Heida

Home is where it all begins. 

I spent most of my life feeling homesick. Years upon years of longing for some place I couldn’t name. I knew I’d had it once, because I could recall the feeling of home. When I was in kindergarten, my mom remarried, he joined the Air Force, and away we went. Away from my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who were like siblings. Away from my biological father. And so began my unsettled life.

As I grew up, the houses we lived in were not ours. They were temporary; they belonged to the military and we lived there until they decided we didn’t. When I became an adult, I moved frequently. 9 addresses in 6 years. I constantly felt like I was searching for something, somewhere…someone.

It took until I hit my thirties to find it, and it was then that I realized I had been looking for the wrong thing all along. Home wasn’t a place. It wasn’t even a person. It was a relationship with my Creator. It was this creative communion I had stumbled upon – or, rather, I’d had revealed to me by that same God.
I realized that nothing on this Earth would satisfy the yearning I felt. No dwelling place would feel complete without His presence. I learned to cultivate this relationship by doing the thing that I continually found myself wanting to do: creating.

When we create, we are invited to enter an intimate space with God. Sure, we can do it on our own. We can plan out our drawing, map out the painting, and make it a rigid process with a certain outcome. OR, we have the opportunity to go Home. To connect with Holy Spirit within us, to allow those nudges and promptings and seemingly random thoughts to guide our creation. When we do this, we don’t know what the outcome will be – at least, not physically, outwardly. But we can always be certain of what the outcome will be within us. A visit to our soul’s place of origin. A return to the connection we will miss as long as our feet touch solid earth.

It’s in those moments of surrender to the process, when we silence our inner critic and let go of what it “should” look like or is “supposed” to be, that we find the communion we’ve been seeking. If we can allow ourselves to give in and accept the invitation, we will find Home there waiting for us.

The best part about this revelation? Home is no longer confined to a place or circumstance. It is wherever we are, where we meet God. It’s not something we have to search for or find. We only have to step into it.

I can always tell when I’ve been avoiding the creation process for too long. I start to feel that familiar unsettled-ness. The antsy, something-is-missing gnawing in my gut. I get restless, and I start looking to my surroundings to try and fix it. The things we own, the décor I look at every day, the people around me. This sometimes goes on for weeks before I recognize that I haven’t painted in ages, haven’t made anything in months. Then, sitting down to paint or create feels stiff and awkward. I don’t know if I remember how to do this. I don’t know if I still can at all! But once I get back into the flow of it, once I feel those nudges and thoughts tugging at me, I can relax into it. Because at last, again, I am Home.

It’s funny now, when I look back on my twenties, to see how desperately I was chasing something that didn’t actually exist. How I longed to find the place that would settle me, accept me, hold me. I was creating even then, but I was doing it on my own terms. I was setting the expectations, and I wasn’t letting my work stray from those. Every project was defined, each creation hyper-planned. I tried to control all the things I could, because I couldn’t eliminate this feeling of homesickness. As it turns out, my insistence on control was the very thing keeping me from finding my true Home.

​Brianna Heida is a mama to four kiddos (two bio, two bonus) in the beautiful chaos of a blended family. She hosts the Creative Salvation podcast and runs Painted Prayers, a non-profit that teaches art as a spiritual practice. Ever the creative, she's built her life, her home, and her family with intention, love and hand-crafted goodness.

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Originally published in Gritty Faith Magazine Issue 2, January/February 2020.
GRITTY FAITH MAGAZINE highlights the stories of fighters, survivors, dream chasers and determined warriors. Filled with the stories, photography and art of those in the trenches, our bi-monthly magazine sparks authentic connections through conversation and art. Join our Gritty Faith Community by subscribing today.