HOME

Thank you for your prayers and well-wishes over the past three weeks. They have been hectic to say the least! We are now back at home in Nebraska, and although our house is littered with boxes, some packed and others empty, and although we have been running around starting checking accounts, getting phones and email service, changing addresses for utilities and greeting old friends, we are happy and at peace.
Transitions are never easy, either physically or emotionally. However, when decisions are right, when there is no doubt that this is what the Holy Father wants for you, when you are met with the love and support and prayers of those who love you most, the transition time becomes less harried and hasseled. It transforms into a time of peace and renewal.
We will miss our friends and church family in Spearman. I will miss being close to three of my grandchildren, but I have to tell you that being "home" feels really, really good! I remember when I was a young married woman. I remember going home to mom's for the holidays. Home was where I could be who I really was, knowing I would be loved and accepted no matter what. Home was where one could be inundated with comfort and overwhelmed with love. Home is where you can take off your shoes, run around in your jammies, tease your family and know that you all still love each other. Home is where people are genuinely concerned for you and your well-being. Home is where you can walk in the door and finish the conversation that you started a few months ago. Home is where you can kiss your mom and sit on your dad's lap. Home is where you can pick on your brother, cry with your sister and listen to grandma's stories one more time, as if it were the very first time. Home is where the heart is!
When I began thinking about the concept of "home". I started to realize that the struggle to not make our "home" in this world is a huge struggle. In the book of Philippians, the author apostle, makes it clear that he is looking forward to being "at home" in heaven. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that we are aliens and strangers here in this world and that our real home is one of an eternal nature. We are sojourners, journeying through life on earth, our course set on heaven above, with our Bridegroom and our Father.
And so, I struggle with the feelings of being "home". I have been praying and meditating about this. My thoughts wandered to the Old Testament, to the children of Israel, taken into captivity again and again, as a result of their own actions! I recall in Jeremiah, God's people are once again in captivity, being held by the Babylonians. God, through the prophet, Jeremiah, instructs them to build their houses and settle down, to plant gardens and eat the produce, to marry and to seek peace and prosperity. God reminds them to not forget His word and to remember that He has plans for them. His plan is to rescue them, to restore them and to bring them home. I wonder if perhaps that is the mindset we are to have here on earth. Perhaps it is our duty to settle down, plant gardens and marry. Perhaps we are to seek peace and prosperity, all the while remembering His words to us and keeping in mind that HE has a plan for US--that plan involves a new home, where we can live with Him forever and ever--rescued and renewed. Perhaps this home should be the one that our heart is set on---after all, home IS where the heart is!

Peace
Neva