I could not believe it. I had just finished carefully parcelling up two books of mine a customer had purchased through my website. I checked my laptop to find out her address and wrote it clearly on the front of the parcel. I started writing my own address on the back—then stopped, horrified. Without thinking, I had begun to write our old home address. Oops!
To put a positive spin on this sad event, we have been at our new address for only around five months—which isn’t long, compared with the thirty-two years we spent at our old address! Obviously, five months is not long enough for such key pieces of information to embed themselves in my brain, ready for automatic recall.
Now I had a dilemma. Should I tear up all that good wrapping paper I had used and start over? Or should I simply cross out my silly mistake, eat humble pie, risk my new customer’s raised eyebrows and write the correct address underneath?
In the end, I chose the latter, after ruefully telling my husband what I had done.
‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘the other day, for the first time since we moved, I headed home to our old house after I finished shopping, instead of our new one!’
Hmm. I wonder what would have happened if he had tried to put his key in the door?
Yet when we still lived at our old house, I too did something similar once. As I drove home late one night along Victoria Road, thinking about all sorts of things, I suddenly realised I had gone straight past our street and was heading for Parramatta! Eventually, I managed to get back on track, but all the while, I found myself thinking, ‘How could have done that? How could I have forgotten where I was heading after all these years?’
In the natural, it’s not ideal to forget where I live or drive right past my own street. But it’s a much more serious matter when I begin to do the same in the spiritual. How often, in the busyness of life, have I failed to remember where my real home is? How often do I wander around, looking for peace and comfort in the wrong places? How often have I lost sight of who I am and where I truly belong? How often do I head in the wrong direction, oblivious to those promptings of the Spirit and so preoccupied with my own thoughts and ideas rather than God’s? Yet God is always there, arms open wide, offering us the most wonderful homecoming of all, just as Jesus showed us in the story of the lost son (Luke 15). Each day, God longs to provide the rest, peace, shelter, safety, strengthening and restoration we need—yet all too often I seem to have lost God’s address.
I wonder if, this Christmas, we all need to make it a priority to find our way back home to God, to that place where we truly belong?
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Matthew 11:28-29
Jo-Anne Berthelsen's Blog 
Jo Anne
Buried my Mum last week. I was wondering if you had a pdf or something of your writing that might encourage me at this time.
Geoff
On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 5:02 AM, Jo-Anne Berthelsen’s Blog wrote:
> Jo-Anne Berthelsen posted: “I could not believe it. I had just finished > carefully parcelling up two books of mine a customer had purchased through > my website. I checked my laptop to find out her address and wrote it > clearly on the front of the parcel. I started writing my own addres” >
Hi Geoff
So sorry to hear of the recent loss of your mum. That is very hard to bear, whatever age we ourselves are and whatever age our parents were. Somehow the world doesn’t seem quite the same, don’t you think? Now re your request for some of my writing that might encourage you, while I don’t think I have anything specifically geared to your need right now, I will send you a couple of things I do have–I will email them as soon as possible. But right now, may God’s deep and tender comfort but very real to you, Geoff.
A great analogy as always, Jo. I can certainly relate to those brain fades. There have been several times this year when I’ve been driving to church and Tim has asked ‘Where are you going?’, because I’d automatically turned up a street as if I was going to the shops or something else. But yes, keeping on the track God wants us to be on is often trickier. Thanks for the reminder to stay tuned to his still small voice.
Yep, Nola, those brain fades definitely have nothing to do with old age–or at least, that’s what I tell myself! I think we just have too much going on in those imaginative minds of ours–often entire parallel worlds. So I reckon you should tell Tim you’re doing well even to remember how to drive the car–and that where you’re heading is a minor detail! .