Homeless...

I have been homeless for a while now.  I would say that it has probably been about 4 years since I have had a home.  Now, please do not misunderstand.  I have a nice 3 bedroom house that we have lived in for over 5 years, but I do not have a home in the sense of a House of Worship.  When I was in college I found a nice, small congregation.  Actually, they found me. They heard that I would be attending the University of North Texas and tracked me down at Greene Family Camp (where I was a staff member) to see if I would be interested in teaching a Religious School class. 

From the fall of 1994, I called this my House of Worship.  I grew with the congregation from renting space at a private school in Denton to them owning their own building in Flower Mound to them building on an addition.  I started by teaching Kindergarten on Sunday mornings (a class of 4 students in the library) and moved to third grade Hebrew and Judaic and then moved to 6th grade Hebrew and 8th grade Judaic.  I helped create a preschool program that met once a month for parents and their toddlers.  I attended almost every Bar or Bat Mitzvah.  My husband served as the Worship Vice President.  D went to her first Bat Mitzvah when she was one week old.  I even ran the high school youth group (NoTTY).

Then, I started to feel like I didn't know anyone anymore.  The students I had taught had graduated and moved on and the students I was teaching didn't have the same relationship with my family.  I still enjoyed it, but I was feeling disconnected.  When I was pregnant with D, I knew that something was going to have to come off of my plate and running the youth group was it.  I also decided to leave teaching my kindergarten job and go into youth work full time.

I became a youth director at a large congregation.  This was a passion of mine and I truly looked forward to going to work everyday and I built some amazing relationships (I will be meeting some former youth groupers over break for coffee).  While I felt a connection to the students, the congregation was my job, not my spiritual home.  It is hard for me to NOT feel a connection to a congregation since belonging to a congregation has always been important to me and an impactful part of my life.

Now, I realize more and more that I need to find a spiritual home, a place where I can worship and socialize, where my children will be engaged in learning and socializing, and my husband feels connected.  This is no small feat and I know that I will have to research and research and research.  This is the time for me to reconnect to my religion and to find a home.