Longing For Home
06/13/2017 .I was exactly where I wanted to be. Despite not speaking the native language, living in a dorm built during the War of 1812 with youngsters ten to fifteen years my junior and being over 4100 miles away from home, I was having the time of my life. In college, I yearned to spend a semester abroad. When my father died my freshman year, that option was no longer financially feasible. However, as a graduate student, my goal was finally realized.
As exciting as it was to be living out my dream, a sinking feeling wriggling and snaking through my stomach that entire trip told me one thing: I was homesick. Not for my bed or house, but for the voices, the language, the connection and feelings of home.
All of us know that gnawing feeling in the pit of our stomach, even when we are home. It’s a void in our life. A hunger for the answer to the question, “Is there more than this?” We sense an emptiness despite all the familiar surrounding us. It isn’t missing the ordinary, but the hope, joy and promise of heaven we long for. Romans 8:18 states: I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Paul understood that hollowness in our hearts. The longing for a place where there will be no suffering, where everyone is beautiful and whole. A place so filled with joy that nothing is missing, except for the things that should be excluded like sickness, terror, hate, and death. While we are here on earth, we desperately long to be in the place where God lives.
Our Savior understands our homesickness. He engraved the eternal in our souls and that is what beckons us to him.
I want to be homesick. And not just on the awful days when someone close to me dies or is taken tragically ill. Not just on the days when I want Jesus to wipe the tears from my eyes. I want my relationship with him to be so strong that even on the busy days, when I’m focused on my chores or to do list, I still long for the incomparable glory Paul wrote about.
My joyful anticipation deepens just thinking of the splendor that will be revealed to us. I want to shine his love and live in the joy of His truth even if it means having my stomach tied up in knots. I hunger to feel his embrace every moment of my life.
I long for home.