The Journey Home

It was after supper, dark was not far away, and I was so far from home it seemed like I was in another land, but still home seemed to be calling.  It was not that I felt like I wanted to go home, but that I felt like I needed to be home.  It had been a wonderful day of being with old friends and the conversation around the evening meal was lively, but in the midst of it all, I felt elsewhere calling.  Without really announcing my intentions I got up knowing it was the first step of a six hour journey home.    

As I drove through the approaching and arriving darkness, I went winding through towns that were not my own, I saw lights in houses which were not the lights for which I was searching, and I saw people going about their way before they went home, but they were not my people.  I was looking for a town where I was known and for a home that burned lights I had left burning to help me find my way back to the place I belonged.  On this the second day since that journey a book called "The White Stone," by Esther De Waal came in the mail as a gift from a friend.  In it she quotes from another who says, "It is true: houses shape people, and in return people shape their houses.  For houses have a life force.  They offer more than shelter; they offer securitiy, stability, a sense of sanctuary."     

When I left that supper table filled with old friends, I was longing for that sanctuary, that place where I knew I belonged, that place which held my life within its storied walls.  God gave me this place some thirteen years ago.  It is for me the most precious place on earth and if I traveled to the seven wonders of the world and beyond, it would still be the small spot on the earth that would beckon me as the end of the journey.  Our homes are in so many ways a prototype for the Home being prepared for us by the One we know as Savior and Lord (John 14:3).   One day we will see the Light that burns in that place and we will know we have finally made it Home.