Some of us have roots that go deep into where we have established a home. We may live not far from where we grew up as children, but others have known many places. For those folks, “the impermanence of home tends to be one of life’s most recurring surprises”.
That has been the life of Bekah DiFelice as the wife of a former Marine. It raises questions many of us have never considered such as: “Is it possible to build a permanent sense of home in a rootless life? If home is where the heart is what can we love that will quiet the restlessness within?”
In Almost Home, Bekah’s first book, she invites the reader into her very personal journey of impermanence and how she discovers resilience along with valuable lessons about love, faith, and relationship that anyone can apply to his or her life whether one that has been rooted in the same place or not.
The experience Bekah shares as a Marine Corps wife immediately resonated with me as one who lived that life and knew the challenge of a husband’s deployment. But Bekah also gave me insights into things to observe now as I live in the place not far from where I grew up.
I love her descriptions in this book related to so many things common to us all. Listen to how she describes adaptation to change:
“Adapting to change is like tucking your knees in when somebody wants to squeeze by your seat, or hitting the brakes for a car to merge ahead of you when you’re already in a hurry. Adapting to change is making room for something you didn’t expect in space that’s already crowded. For most of us, it is painful and annoying.”
Leaving home is something most of us experience at one time or another. In our late teens or early adulthood we rush eagerly to grab new experiences in new places many times and only then begin to discover fully what “home” means for us.
Bekah reminds the reader of how God uses that leaving:
“It’s as if the act of leaving is part of the equipping, as if God personally leads people out of familiar territory so he can tell them who they are.”
So when does home change for us or does it?
“Home doesn’t begin or end with a mailing address or a change in surname. I don’t think it is ever a total reboot.
Home is a lot like a poorly categorized box containing all sorts of odds and ends: the surprising and the familiar, the old and the new, the bitter and the sweet. It is mismatched in so many ways—not a start and end but an overlap, a tangle. We move away from it and bring it with us still.”
How true that is!
Bekah lets us journey with her as a new bride who leaves behind the beauty of the Colorado mountains for the dusty desert of her husband’s first duty station in Yuma, Arizona. Through the pages we experience her loneliness, her search for new relationships, new churches, the anxiety of a husband’s deployment, becoming a mom, and the quest for that illusive sense of home as she defines it.
Just when you find yourself either identifying with her or feeling comfortable with your own settled roots that have never moved very far from your childhood home, she challenges the reader.
“But I think it’s possible to be transient and aloof without ever leaving your hometown. I think we can be settled geographically but transient in commitment, in relationship, in purpose. We can be aimless without traveling, passive by nature, reluctant to strain beyond the discomfort required to produce actual growth.”
If you pick up this book, be prepared to delight in her engaging style of writing, but don’t be shocked when out of nowhere she nails a powerful truth to the page that pierces your heart and consciousness whether you are rooted in one place or transient.
To comply with new regulations introduced by the Federal Trade Commission, Tyndale House Publishers provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my review.
Thank for introducing this book to me. I know someone who may be blessed by it, and am passing it along!
Will be adding this one to my reading list. Thanks so much for the review!
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
It sounds like a wonderful book, with a wonderful message. Thank you for sharing it at The Really Crafty Link Party this week. Pinned!
It was a goody!
I’ll definitely be adding this to my TBR list!! I love the line about being transient without ever leaving home. That is something that definitely resonates with me. I can’t wait to see what other bits of wisdom are within the covers!
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did, Brandyn!
Pam- this looks like a great book! This line resonated with me, ““It’s as if the act of leaving is part of the equipping, as if God personally leads people out of familiar territory so he can tell them who they are.”
I totally agree we moved 4 years ago from our childhood home. We moved because we felt God’s leading. Since that time, I’ve grown from the lies and hurts of my past!
Glad I stopped from #LMMLinkup
Thanks, Julie! I think your experience fits with what I have heard from others over the years. I think we also have lots of biblical examples starting with Abraham where God used a move in a powerful way.
Wow! This sounds like a great read! Adding this to my summer reading list! Thank you so much for sharing, Pam! GOD bless you, beautiful friend! 🙂
What a beautiful book and concept – the act of leaving tells us who we really are – or where we really are headed. Great review.
Thanks so much! I liked the cover as well…very creative idea!
This line resonated with me: ““It’s as if the act of leaving is part of the equipping, as if God personally leads people out of familiar territory so he can tell them who they are.”
I think that happens a lot! Personally, I think a lot of us go through life almost in a coma. It takes a lot to get us to see who we really are and what is really important to us.
I agree Jerralea! It is also evident with so many Bible heroes that God led them out of familiar territory (Abraham, Moses, Joshua, etc.)
It’s 2 years since we moved from there to here, friend. I’d say this place feels like home now … with a few exceptions.
People make the difference. And blogging made the long passageway so much smoother.
Some people we take with us no matter where we go …
So glad to hear that and I could not agree with your view more about people we take with us. I also know that when close friends move away you sometimes discover their value of the relationship when it is less easy to stay in touch.
I’m one of those people who has lived almost my whole life in one small area. But I’m grateful for it since most of my family also lives here. I would be very sad if I ever had to move. But by the grace of God and with help from the examples of others (like this book!), I hope I’d be able to do it if necessary. Thanks for sharing this resource, Pam. Sounds like a great read.
Thanks for giving me this sweet glimpse into a bit of your life! After our time when my husband was in the Marine Corps, I have lived the rest of my life 2 miles from where I grew up!! (Yes, the book was a great read.)