Sunday Devotional: Longing For Home

This time of year I always get a little misty about heaven and how indelibly changed I am by those I love who’ve gone there before:  my adoptive father, July 3, 1984, and our sixth baby, Duncan Reid, July 13, 1999, after his birth just eleven days earlier. But the tug toward heaven has always been there ...

A certain chording in a song,

An almost-familiar landscape,

A certain scent…

Awakening memories—

Leaving me breathless—

On the verge of tears—

Hoping, wishing, trying

To return to a time or place

So far beyond my reach

That it’s impossible to recapture.

The Past is past,

I am told.

You can never go back.

And so I remind myself

When this ache grips my heart.

And yet I can’t help but wonder

If this, too, is not part of something

greater, deeper, older—

A small part of the continuing proof

That we are not alone

That this place is not…the only one

That all of humanity longs

To reach back

Return

To Whence we came.

O Lord, I know You are real

And You need no proof

Still I am grateful

For a small demonstration of the truth

That I have a Home waiting

And someday I’ll be there

Where all that was broken or lost

Will truly be regained.

¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. ¹⁹ For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; ²¹ because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. ²² For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. ²³ Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. ²⁴ For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. (Romans 8, NKJV)