Home Sweet Home

If you asked me today where I am from, I'd tell you Ohio. But if you asked me where "home" is, I'm not quite sure what my answer would be. Do I dare still say "Ohio," where I spent the first twenty years of my life dreaming of escape down a southern highway, rear-view mirrored pulled off so that I could never look back? Or do I claim it's "the South", where my Yankee accent and lack of knowledge about liverwurst and grits make it clear I'm telling a lie. Sometimes I'm tempted just to say it's wherever my husband is standing next to me, because I've felt some of my strongest "at home" feelings holding his hand on a strange beach a thousand miles away from anything familiar.

But I think these contradictory emotions just point me to the real home that's being built for me in Heaven. How could anybody feel perfectly at home here when children die, grown-ups kill, diseases rob, and the very earth that sustains us can conjure up a storm to destroy everything in its path? My God is making everything new. And extraordinary. This place is only temporary, and my eternal soul needs a different world that it can forever call home. He will redeem. He will sustain. He will make everything beautiful in its time.

And for now, he does give me a husband to stand next to. And wonderful in-laws to stay with, and friends to reunite with, and parents to hug, and places to cherish. People and places and an entire world to give me a small glance at the amazing home I'll be going to one day. 

For now, I'll enjoy these sweet moments I found before me while staying at my in-laws. 

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I hope this summer brings you back home, to the God and sustainer who cherishes you immensely.

Agape,
CC