Homesick

When I was younger, my parents would often go on "weekend trips" to visit relatives or friends and we'd head back home late Sunday night. It would be dark (night) and a long way home so I'd usually fall asleep in the back seat. It always happened that I'd wake up about 15 minutes from home when we'd exit off the highway. And I would look bleary eyed out the window to find familiar landscape marks that let me know that we were almost home. Home..where it was warm, safe and all my things were there waiting for me. Where my favorite food was. Where my favorite toys were. Where my pets were. Familiar again. Do you know that feeling? Such a good, warm feeling, you wish you could bottle it up and feel it again and again?

I miss that feeling. I'm not a little kid anymore...but I'm still homesick. Oh, not for any particular place; though I've loved every place we've lived. I long for some sort of home...here on earth and otherwise. I want to find "home" again...for myself and my family. A place where Chaz and Hannah can have their own toys, favorite foods and pets. I want God to provide that for us, and someday He will....I just wish it was soon.

But I know I'm not supposed to really feel at "home" anywhere here. I'm not made to function perfectly in this fallen world. This isn't what God had planned, I know. I hear the echoes of Eden and I long for home...though I can't quite put my finger on what that would look like, you know? But I know that it will be perfect. People (including myself) won't have prejudices and personal agendas...we'll truly put others before ourselves. We will see each other the way God sees us. To be in perfect relationship with Him instead of days or weeks of silence. Taylor talked about the day of death being better than the day of birth...and I agree that we can't wrap our limited human minds around that. But something inside of me that God purposefully put there isn't content with the best day on earth, but that KNOWS there's something more out there. When creation is restored and Eden is a reality...THAT will be a homecoming day!

And we have a part...Jesus taught us to pray: "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." That means we are a part of bringing heaven to earth. We are a part of restoring creation (including mankind). We are a part of the remedy and rescue. We're on the long drive home...the scenery seems vaguely familiar..as in a distorted mirror. But there's something inside of us pushing us on, calling us home...telling us to do something drastic and amazing..because that's what it's going to take to get there. Home...whatever that is.

"Friends, this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it. Don't indulge your ego at the expense of your soul." (1 Peter 2:11)