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by Emily Lynas

‘If you wanna go 

I’m going back down South now 

Come on take my hand 

I’m heading back down South now’ Kings of Leon.

‘I salute at the threshold of the North sea of my mind...Swim until you can't see land’
Frightened Rabbit.

My husband Dave can usually figure out quite quickly where my heart is in that moment depending on which song I’m spinning around the sitting room floor to. 

Sometimes I feel like I have a split personality or just that my heart is in two places!

There are days when I pine for my home county of Wicklow, with its tall trees and gorse covered mountains. 
I pine for my family home, sitting at my parents' kitchen table with a cup of coffee, and nieces and nephews charging around while we all talk over each other about nothing hugely significant, but no one wants to leave! 
I pine for Dublin and its winding streets littered beautifully with Georgian architecture and cobbled paths. I pine for how well I know it and how certain places flood my memory with college days and stolen kisses! I pine for old friends who have known me all my life and still seem to love me more than ever, friends that have weathered the worst of storms with me and celebrated the sweetest of life’s moments.

I pine for where I was born and grew up and this is when I play Kings of Leon’s aptly named song ‘Back Down South’ (I know its really about the Southern states of the US, but who cares)

But wait.....

There are the other days when I relish in the incredible fact that I live on the wild North coast of Ireland.
These are the days when I am running along the Portstewart Strand with two mad dogs and God is embarrassingly showing off again!! with a winter kissed sunset that puts all other sunsets to shame around the world. 

I fall in love daily with this land.

I love its unpredictable weather patterns and ever changing sea colour. I love when the ‘swell is pumping man’ and a flurry of texts fly around, and low and behold Dave, Dan, Tim, Spencey, Jonny and many more are suddenly not that busy!!! The sea is filled with wet suited clad men braving the cold temperatures and fixated on the rush that comes with the mighty ocean. I love the friends I’ve made here, people who are sold out for Jesus and never ashamed to brag about his glorious generosity. I love the church community we are privileged to be a part of and how it never ceases to surprise me how unique it really is. I love I can be myself in my oddness and joy filled craziness. I love that Dave came back to the place he was born and grew up in; I love that he returned a very different person than when he left. I love being around his family and the wisdom and warmth they bestow upon us.

So when I bubble over with the privilege of being planted here for this season of my life .... I play Frightened Rabbit ‘Swim until you cant see land’ because this place holds endless possibilities for me, many I can't even see yet..! and I ‘Salute at the threshold of the North sea..’

There is another song that I play which I believe calms my ever torn heart...and that is ‘Home’ by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (the band I will one day leave you all for and join...look them up and you will see why!)

‘Home, let me come home

 Home is whenever I’m with you’

You see I don’t believe God ‘called us North’ I believe he ‘called’ us to Himself. God is ‘home’ for me. I also believe that we needed a change, a challenge, an adventure. Both Dave and I are risk takers but this has been something we have grown into and through life circumstances we have become less afraid. 

Some days I have a long term memory and I can remember Gods promises and what our future is in Him. 
Some days I have a short term memory and I get caught up in my feelings of homesickness or panic about the cliff we are about to jump off!! This ‘cliff’ of course is the coffee shop Lost & Found we are shortly opening up with the incredible Daniel and Kathleen. 

I’ve found over the years that life really boils down to a daily decision of faith, to believe wholeheartedly that you can be sure of what you hope for and certain of what you have not yet seen.

Saving that, it’s always a good thing to listen to your favourite music and dance like nobody's watching....