Being Home

When I was a boy growing up back in the Waycross, Georgia years, it was often our custom to go to Aunt Angie's for lunch on Sunday afternoon.  By the time I got to know her, she was a widow who lived in a frame wood dog trot farm house out in the middle of nowhere.  When we gathered it was usually a big family event.  The food filled the table like Homecoming at a country church.  There was fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, butter beans and peas, mashed potatoes, biscuits, corn on the cob, and blackberry pie for desert. 

 

Back then I did not realize it was the thing of which memories are made.  Now I know it is not only something which warms the heart as a memory, but also something which points me ahead to the feast in the eternal heavenly place.  I really don't know much about heaven.  I have never spent much time trying to figure it out, but figuring it out is not necessary for me to know it is something for which my soul longs.  So many of those who gathered with me at Aunt Angie's table have gone on to the heavenly place.  They surely must be a part of that eternal group described in the first verse of Hebrews 12, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses..."

My childhood memory of an abundant feast and a family gathered around the table creates an image which speaks of what is to come.  It is a memory more perfect than it possibly could have been, and one perfect enough to point us toward the joyful gathering in the heavenly place.  Particulars about heaven I have never needed.  It is enough to know it is out there beyond this life, but also every once in a while breaking into this life to encourage us and increase our hope.  And as surely as that table gathering at Aunt Angie's was about being home, so is heaven mostly about finally making it home.