(This post is written and authored by a close friend of mine named Rachel Slater. Her and her family have spent many years of their lives on mission everywhere, and this really spoke to me and felt it would do the same for anyone who would read it.)
Home is an idea our family is obsessed with…. we have been so many places that figuring out where we belong often feels foggy. Our hearts are all over. We feel part of everywhere and nowhere.
The People of the Book (Jews, Christians) are wanderers. (Wayfaring strangers, eh!) Our home is not here on earth. We are passing through.
And I am glad for that….. There are beautiful gifts from God we experience on this earth, but this is also a place of destruction..loss…death. We all face trials. No one is exempt.
Believers in Christ, too, get sick, experience loss, pain, harm, danger, fear, and death…. but the difference is (or should be, if you truly believe) that although we cannot get a free pass OUT of these things… we have One who will faithfully guide us THROUGH these things.
In the midst of trials (how can it be?!) we still experience JOY! HOPE! And yes.. even PEACE!
From God, these gifts get us through each trial that we face.
It is still hard, our hearts ache…we groan inwardly….
The Bible tells us it is like experiencing the pains of childbirth…. but soon, the pain will pass… and soon the birth of a new day will come. And we will all be Home.
This will be the sweetest sound to me, when I hear my Father (God) say;
“Welcome Home, child.”