leaving the place of my childhood -- cleveland ohio -- and heading back to atlanta georgia --- the city which has claimed most of my adult life.
it's always emotional.
to leave my parents who need me, especially my mom still in the hospital ... but to come home to my own little (and big) ones who also need me.
they are all my home and, guess what? i need them. all of them.
and on this plane tonight, thinking that in exactly one week from right now, i'll be flying across the world on my way to africa to spend time with women and children in an entirely different version of home. so different, my mind can't imagine, but so much the same, i just know, i'll be amazed.
feeling overwhelmed and emotional and grateful and, most of all, keenly aware of the gift God gives us, not in our shelters or our cities, but mostly in people.
people we love.
people who love us.
people we come back to quickly.
people we travel far distances to meet eagerly.
people we know well and people we have yet to know.
just people.
i realize i am sounding a little bit like a barbara streisand song from the 70's -- not really my intention. but i guess, like barbara, i am touched tonight by the people God has placed in my life. people from different seasons, different situations, different cities; but who provide me a place which feels like home.
and it doesn't matter our skin color or our blood relation or our unique ways of doing things. it's something different. something even deeper.
maybe you, too, feel as if you live with little pieces of your heart scattered across the country --- the world. that sense of home: what is it? where is it? why is it sometimes even sad and somewhat incomplete? loved ones here and there. no way for them all to always come together. with the moving we've done, that is so true for my family. sometimes that feels incredibly heavy, i long for one gathering place of grace.
it's physical, yes, but more than anything, it's spiritual.
tonight, i'm just thankful though, that God allows me to come and go. to be here and there. not to be everywhere, but to have moments. and mostly to know this whole home-thing is not about HERE anyway, but about WHERE we will be for eternity.
that one gathering place of grace.
that perfect home-place with many rooms.
o Lord, that all my loved ones might someday meet me there.
"but our citizenship is in heaven,
and from it we await a Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ." ~ philippians 3:20
flying tonight from my people to my people. high in the sky. full in my heart.
traveling through all of this beautiful temporary with my eyes on the most beautiful eternal.
it's so good.
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