Challenge #18: HOMESICK

This world is not my home,
I’m just a passing thru.
My treasures are laid up some where beyond the blue;
The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door,
And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.


I will always remember the night I heard him crying.

Though we had been in college for at least 3 months, my roommate was suddenly hit with such a strong surge of nostalgia for home that I awoke in the middle of the night to the sounds of his sobs. It gave me such a strange, helpless feeling. There is little you can do to comfort the victim of homesickness. We later talked about his memories, the things he loved about home, the sacrifice of leaving. But even the discussion was somewhat painful for him.

Sometimes the best cure is to simply allow time to do its trick, to slowly dull our emotion, fade our memories. But then, out of the unexpected blue, we will see something. Maybe a smell. A stranger speaking with a familiar accent. A billboard on the highway. And suddenly our body reacts, a lump forms in the throat, our eyes close with emotion, the mind lost in the splendor of days past.

Home.

The Glory Days. The “remember-whens”. My children often ask me to tell them stories of my youth: the games, the fights, the neighborhood rivalries, the snow days with Mom and Dad… there are countless stories. And I confess that I love to craft the tales, rounding the edges with embellishments while maintaining the essence of the heart of home. And on many occasions, I get the lump.

I find it interesting how our spiritual selves have the same longing. Paul even describes it as a “groaning” in his letter to the church in Corinth:
Now we know that if the earthly tent [physical body] we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling. 2 Cor. 5:1-2 (NIV)

As you walk with Jesus toward the Cross, imagine yourself as being one of his disciples, but with a slight twist: imagine you are with Him, but that you also have the full knowledge of what is about to happen. What thoughts must be going through His head? He is less than two weeks away from returning home. We often think, and rightfully so, of the despair, the pain of walking toward the Cross… but what of His walk toward Home? …His return to Paradise?

Our home was once here on earth. It was found in the Garden of Eden. We lived within God’s Creation, but a holy, sinless, spotless, yet-to-be-cursed Creation. God Himself would walk with us through the Garden. In John’s Revelation, John is blessed with the realization that the Tree of Life is found “in the Paradise of God”, waiting for us to return! Our spiritual selves groan for that home, for the Paradise of God.

Challenge #18: Describe home. When you think of home, what thoughts run through your head, through your heart?

This week will be tough… not in the sense of physical restraint, but in spiritual openness. This week, dwell on grace, pray often and passionately. The journey is yours, though you are not alone. We sojourn together… and will return home together.


Monday’s Challenge #19: UGLY