Tuesday, June 29, 2010

There's No Place Like Home

Cropped screenshot of Judy Garland from the tr...Image via Wikipedia

Growing up, and I confess even as an adult, one of my favorite movies has been "The Wizard of Oz". I loved watching Dorothy and her friends trek through foreign land in her search to go home again.

In a sermon recently, Glen made the statement, "Home. Doesn't that word just sound good to us?"

Its true. The very word denotes comfort and rest to most of us. Especially when we have been traveling, we look forward to returning home.

As we grow older, "home" begins to escape us. I used to like to go by the home of my grandparents, but it no longer exists. A vacant lot is now the only remembrance of a wooden house that used to shake as the trains passed on the nearby tracks; where my cousin and I would sit on the porch swing and tell tales; and where my grandmother's large family would meet for reunions.

When my parents died, Glen and I cleaned the home of my childhood to prepare it to be sold. The last act of caring for that home was symbolic of the care we had given the residents within. We cried, and as the air conditioner vent dripped condensation, it appeared the house, now empty and silent, cried as well.

Since then, I can't enter the house of my childhood without ringing the doorbell and asking permission. I can't easily go back to that home again.

Even the "home" of our bodies over time becomes a less welcoming place. Parts that worked so well in our teenage years, begin to wear out and give out on us. I was reminded of that just this week. Not yet adjusted to my new glasses, I was in a class at That is because these are not our true homes. Our true home is Christ, for "in Him we live and move and have our being." He is the true place of comfort and rest, the place that does not decay or decline, the place where there is never disappointment or dismay. And He is preparing a place for us to abide as well, that, as He said, "where I am, ye may be also."

So as the days fly by, perhaps we must leave or lose an earthly home we have known as a child or an adult and we must say goodbye to the memories those walls contain. Or perhaps we find our "house" of flesh becoming more in more disrepair, faltering and failing on us, let us look with hopeful eyes and hearts to the One who has promised us the "house not made with hands" and the home eternal where no moth or rust can decay.

So then "this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. "

"Even so, Lord Jesus, come." (Revelation 22:20)

Enhanced by Zemanta

No comments: