going home

Ahhh…the feel of coming home. As we drive around the serene Pennsylvania countryside, with the peaceful cows munching on grass, and the gentle rolling hills dotted with farmhouses and barns, a sigh escapes my lips. My husband asks, “Why the sigh?” and I honestly don’t know the answer.

You see, we left Pennsylvania four years ago to take a call in Georgia. We have come back to visit family. His family. He is the PA native; I am the GA girl. Of course they are my family too, as I love them with all my heart; but my family is all in Georgia. So why this sigh of nostalgia, of longing? When I lived here I longed for Georgia. But now that we are living in Georgia, I long for here.

“Do you wish we could come back?” my husband asks.

Do I? Yes, in many ways. However, things have changed here. People have moved, new people have come. Places are different, dynamics are different. We could never recapture now the way it was then.

I turn my thoughts to our current home. I love the people and the church dearly. I love the Georgia way. I love the vibrancy of our ministry. I especially love being near my family. My husband and I have grown so much over the four years we have been in our new church, and our children have thrived. So why am I so melancholy at this moment?

I ponder this question, and quietly pray for an answer.

The answer comes to my spirit in a whisper:

Because that was your home. But where you are now is your home. Every place I have put you is your home. I have grown and developed you in each place, and each place has become a part of who you are. And I will continue to grow you where I plant you in the future. However, you will never be fully content, because your true home isn’t here on this earth—it is in Heaven, with Me. That is where your Home is, and that is what your heart longs for.

Perhaps this combined sense of longing for the past, but yearning for the future, that I live with--that I thought plagued me—is straight from God. It doesn’t mean I’m not content where I am. It means that I am always ready for whatever God has in store. Each place, each new adventure, is just one step closer to our final destination.

Ahhh…the feel of going home!

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