 As my spouse and I drove to and from my parents’ house this past Sunday afternoon, I found myself lingering on what it means to come home. Not simply to a dwelling, but rather, a place, or person, or way of living in which we dwell.
I always get rather reflective around my birthdays, so, maybe this is just a remnant of the birthday that just passed–I’m not sure. All I know is that I have been spending a great deal of my time lately making space to dwell on who I’ve been, who I am, and who I’m still becoming. The more I reflect on becoming, however, the more I realize it’s not always about striving forward. Sometimes, it’s about circling back. Sometimes, becoming looks a lot like returning—to a truer version of ourselves. To what was always there underneath the noise. To the person we were before we learned to perform or protect or prove. Sometimes becoming looks more like coming home. Like most things in our lives–coming home to ourselves is not a one-time event. It’s more like a rhythm of remembering who we were before we learned to prove, or please, or perfect. And while it might seem like a selfish turn, it is no such thing. In fact, this turn is a sacred one. In Luke 15, when Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son, there’s a quiet line that often gets overshadowed by the drama of departure and return. “When he came to himself…” (Luke 15:17, CEB) When he came to himself…Before the long walk home. Before the father’s embrace. Before the speech. This son first came to himself. I have to wonder if that’s where this return trip home always begins–by first coming home to ourselves. It makes sense to me when I really think about it. After all, one way to understand our faith is to understand it not as a journey of becoming someone or anyone else. Rather, it is a memory walk–a journey of remembering who we have always been: Beloved, enough, already held by grace. In this way, coming home to ourselves is the shoreline of coming home to God. Jan Richardson is a poet, artist, and ordained United Methodist minister whose work blends deep theological insight with soulful tenderness. In her collection titled The Cure for Sorrow, Richardson shares a beautiful blessing for this journey home: “Blessing for Coming Home to Yourself” (by Jan Richardson) When you come home to yourself, may you enter with gladness, as one who has long been away and is welcomed with joy. May your own arms be the ones that open to receive you, the ones that reach across the distance that you so often imagine. May you know the door is always open. The lights are always on. And that you are wanted here. May it not matter how long you’ve been gone. May it only matter that you made it back. Whether it has recently been your birthday or not, this is the invitation for us all: To come home—not to perfection, not to performance, but to the quiet knowing that each and every one of us are already held…and often, by that version of ourselves we thought was long ago gone. That version God created that comparison and competition covered up over time, but the version that has always existed and always awaits our joyous return with arms wide open. They say you can’t go home again, but maybe they’re wrong. Because sometimes, grace brings us back to the very place we thought we’d lost—only now, we’re finally ready to be there. So this week, I’m doing my solid best to let go of the pressure to become someone new. Instead, my efforts are focused on coming home to who I already am. And I hope, wherever you are on the journey, you’ll think about joining me and come home to yourself too. On the journey with you, Pr. Melissa  The other night I was sitting on my patio enjoying a campfire at dusk. As I sat there, the fireflies began to emerge from wherever it is their lights hide during the daylight hours. Then, I began to hear two catbirds calling out to one another—each of them taking turns calling and answering. Calling and answering. Calling and answering.
Their rhythm has stayed with me, though I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it's because so much of life is like that: Calling and answering. Calling and answering. We speak something into the quiet—sometimes with clarity, sometimes with longing, sometimes with nothing more than a deep sigh—and we hope that someone, somewhere, will answer back. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised, it is, after all, in our nature. From the moment we’re born, we are reaching out. Longing for connection. Hoping the voice we’ve sent into the dark will not return empty. Even creation seems to know this truth. The catbirds call. The fireflies blink. The trees sway in time with the breeze, always in motion, always in response to the wind. In the Psalms, we hear this rhythm too. “I cry out loud to the Lord-- I plead for mercy to the Lord. I pour out my complaints before God; I tell God my troubles.” (Psalm 142:1–2, CEB) The psalmist doesn’t hold back. There’s no shame in the reaching and no apology in the call. There’s just honesty. Presence. The hope that God hears—and that maybe we’ll hear something back from the One we are always calling out to. But here’s the thing I’m still learning–and maybe you are too: Sometimes the answer doesn’t come in the way we expect. It doesn’t always sound like a voice in the night or feel like a sign from above. Sometimes the answer comes as a bird in the trees. Sometimes it’s the warmth of firelight or the shimmer of a firefly. Sometimes it’s the breath we didn’t even realize we were holding finally releasing into the night. I think God's like that. I don't have any hard and fast facts to this end, but–even still–I believe God is still answering us. Not always with fixes, but often with presence. Not always in clarity, but often in quiet companionship. That night on the patio, I didn’t have any big epiphanies. No grand revelations. But I felt a kind of peace settle in—the kind that comes when you stop trying to control the conversation and instead simply join in. Call and answer. Call and answer. It’s what we’re made for. So this week, if you’re calling out—keep calling. If you’re listening—listen closely. Somewhere, in ways small and holy, the Spirit is always echoing back–always answering–always finding us–even in the dark. On the journey with you, Pr. Melissa  The other morning on my walk, I saw an elderly man with his dog. They weren’t hurrying anywhere—just meandering down the sidewalk in that slow, familiar rhythm of people who’ve learned there’s no need to rush.
As I passed by, I noticed the man had paused—his dog waiting beside him—so he could pull a handful of weeds from the edge of a flower bed. It was one of those beds that borders a building, the kind that–after a while–blends into the general landscape so much so that no one really notices it anymore. This flower bed in particular happened to belong to one of the local funeral homes. “Such quiet care,” I thought, “for something that isn’t even his.” I couldn’t help but stare as my dogs and I walked by on the opposite side of the street. Maybe it was the way he gave attention to a place most of us pass by without a second glance. Maybe this is just part of his daily routine–perhaps he pulls a few weeds every morning someplace? I’m not sure, all I know is that there was something so simple and tender and holy, even, about the scene. So much so that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I saw it all unfold. In the Gospel of Matthew (5:5) Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” That word “meek” gets misunderstood a lot. It’s not meant to be synonymous with weakness. It’s meant to indicate gentleness. Steadiness. Strength restrained. Like the quiet power of people who make the world better in ways no one’s applauding. Outside of this very local blog post, I doubt that man will ever make the news for pulling weeds outside a funeral home. And yet, even without accolades, this simple act was one of stewardship. Of quiet dignity. Of tending the edges of life that others forget. It reminds me of something theologian and author Barbara Brown Taylor once wrote: “The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self—to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince, or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.” That man and his dog didn’t say a word to me–and, truthfully, they didn’t have to. Because their presence—his small act of tending, the dog’s patient loyalty—sprung something open in me. It reminded me that holiness often shows up not in pulpits or pageantry, but in people quietly choosing to care for what’s right in front of them. People just like us. It means something to tend the edges. To love the unnoticed. To pull weeds from flower beds that aren’t ours. What it means? Well, that might be as individual as each person reading this today. All I know is that it’s moments like these that the Divine gives us just a glimpse of what’s possible–both in us and outside us–and reminds us that the work of the Spirit is less about changing the whole world in one sweeping gesture. The work of the Spirit was, is, and will forever be about the quiet ways we choose to help make things just a little more beautiful, right where we are, just as we are. So this week, Beloved, I’m going to do my best to make things just a little more beautiful–in my own quiet way. And I pray you might join me through quiet ways of your own. On the journey with you, Pr. Melissa  The other evening, I was lying in the hammock out back, just staring up at the sky. The wind moved gently through the trees, and the sun was sliding its way down the horizon. It was an ordinary evening. Quiet. Calm.
And then a thought caught up to me–seemingly out of nowhere. I hadn’t been thinking about my late nephew–not really anyway. I was thinking about the breeze, the bugs, and whether or not a rabbit or a chipmunk would come strolling across the yard again. But then, all of a sudden, I was back to last summer—back to that raw ache of wondering where he is now. Wondering if he’s okay, if he’s at peace, if he feels love wherever he is. And just like that, an all-too-familiar lump found my throat, tears filled my eyes, and my chest grew heavy. Grief is as sly as a fox sometimes. We think we’ve moved beyond it, or at least tucked it neatly away, only to have it sneak up on us in the quietest, most mundane moments. When we’re driving down the highway, or folding laundry, or just lying in a hammock on a summer night. I’m reminded of this verse in scripture—two simple words—that helps me remember that grief is not something we ever outgrow or finish. The verse is found in the gospel of John during the moment Jesus stands at the tomb of his late friend, Lazarus. The verse simply reads, “Jesus wept.” It doesn’t say how long Jesus wept. It doesn’t say how often the tears came back in the days and weeks that followed. It doesn’t tell us if he cried again later that night as he lay under the stars. It just says he wept. And I guess I found some comfort in those words the other night because they reminded me that tears are holy. Sacred. Needing no further explanation. Adhering to no timeline. They reminded me that love and grief are tangled up together, and that even Jesus--God With Us—knew what it was to feel the ache of loss catch in his throat and spill down his face. So if today sometime you find yourself caught off guard by your own grief—if it sneaks up on you in the grocery store or when you hear their favorite song, or when you’re just lying in a hammock of your own staring up at the sky—know this: Your tears–that lump in your throat–that heaviness in your chest–they aren’t indicators that anything is wrong. They’re not evidence that you’re somehow failing at moving on, or that you don’t love the people who are still here with you. You are simply continuing to love the one you lost. And that love is holy. Wherever this message finds you today, Beloveds, may you feel held in that holy kind of love, and may each and every one of us know the comfort of our tender God who weeps with us, for just as long as the tears come. On the journey with you, Pr. Melissa  This past week, I stayed home.
No airports. No road trips. No packing lists or frantic last-minute stops at Walmart. Just…home. I spent hours in the garden, moving slowly down the rows of green beans, letting my fingers search out each tender pod hidden among the leaves. I felt the breeze lifting the brim of my floppy hat, heard the bees and birds and distant lawn mowers humming their summer song. Time moved differently out there. It wasn’t about productivity or harvesting as fast as possible. It was about being present. About remembering that this land holds life and life holds God. In the evenings, I sat in the hot tub as the sky turned pink and the bats began their nightly dance overhead. Warm water, cool night air, the smell of cut grass drifting across the yard. Sometimes I closed my eyes and felt my heartbeat settle into something calm and ancient, like the rhythms of the earth itself. Throughout the week, I found myself thinking about how little we notice when we’re always moving. How easy it is to miss the quiet glimpses of the Divine woven into our ordinary days: the bee dusted with pollen, the hush of dusk, the feel of tomato vines brushing against my arm. Each moment became a doorway to something holy. I spent time with my family and with my dogs, just being together without the pressing need to rush off to the next thing. I sat with my thoughts, even the heavy ones, without trying to fix or escape them. I prayed in ways that didn’t use words. I let silence say what needed to be said. And I realized: this is the life I long for. A life that notices. A life that slows down enough to be changed by the breeze, the bees, the quiet presence of God that pulses through every green bean vine and every beating heart. We think we need to leave home to find rest, but maybe the deepest rest is right here, waiting for us to stop and notice. Waiting for us to come home to ourselves, and to the holy that has been here all along. This week, I invite you to slow down. Pause long enough to notice a bee at work, or the way the light filters through the trees on your drive home. Take a breath before you answer the next email. Sit quietly with your coffee in the morning. Let these small moments become doorways to something holy. Because the Divine is here, right where you are, waiting to be noticed. On this slow journey of faith with you, Pr. Melissa |
Pastor Melissa enjoying time on her hammock.
Rev. Melissa Sternhagen
Rev. Melissa Sternhagen was called as the pastor of St. Paul Congregational UCC in June of 2020. Prior to her call to St. Paul, Pr. Melissa worked as a hospice chaplain in the Ames, IA area, following pastorates at rural churches in Central Iowa and Southern Illinois. Pr. Melissa is a second-career pastor with a background in agribusiness and production & supply operations. She received her M.Div. from Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, MO, and holds a MA Ed. in Adult Education and Training, and a BA in Organizational Communications. Archives
November 2025
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