Home!

Deb and I traveled to Florida over the Thanksgiving holidays to visit her mom, brother, and sister-in-law as well as other family members and friends. The weather in Florida could not be better - low eighties, no rain. We had a wonderful time. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we set out on our journey home. Our original plan was to get as far as we could and then stop somewhere if we got too tired. But we kind of broke up our journey into manageable junks and around about 1:30 AM we rolled into Northeast Ohio. As we passed our first sign that welcomed us back to our home, Deb says "Ahh Brecksville".

Now on the surface of it, going from the sunny pleasant confines of Florida to the unpredictable grays of NE Ohio this time of year is hardly fitting but this is our home and there are many days it is hard to imaging living anywhere else. Jesus says in John 14:1-3 that he is going to prepare a home for us in heaven, the home we have always longed for. I blogged about home a number of weeks ago commenting on the passing of my friend Greg Gerycz. What is it about home that fills the deep longings of our heart and soul?

1. Home is a place of the familiar. It is what we are accustomed to. Being away, I think we appreciate what home represents.
2. Home is where we can rest in the routine of life. Life has its patterns and while sometimes those patterns need a break, we always feel better when we get back to those patterns.
3. Home is the physical place of authority. What I mean is that this is the place where we kind of take charge of our own lives. As much as we love to visit people, we are in their home and their place. We tell people but "Make yourself at home" but it can never be our physical home.
4. Home is the presence of relationships. It is where friends and family dwell.  Over the years, we have developed so many friends here it becomes hard to imagine being anywhere else. Our girls and much of our family are elsewhere and we go to them in one sense to reunite people and places together. This is why the longing of heaven is so natural because it reunites us with the most intimate of relationships from across time and space.

We while wintering in NE Ohio is not ideal and Florida certainly appeals to my creature comforts desires, it is very good to be Home.