I am homesick for a place I am not sure even exists. One where my heart is full. My body loved. And my soul understood. Melissa Cox
My life was a wandering; I never had a homeland. It was a matter of being constantly tossed about, without rest; nowhere and never did I find a home. Jan Amos Komenský
Deep inside I have this longing for home. Whatever and wherever home may be to me here and now, there is a desire to return to what I was designed for. The familiarity, the companionship, the comfort, the belonging of home produces an ache inside me like I have wandered too far and can’t find my way back. The returning that I have to other lovers, the things I do in order to fill the void inside – that constant pull and striving – is because I have lost my way.
I was designed for the familiarity and intimate inclusion in God’s love, but I have found myself distanced from it, even unfamiliar with it now.
I was designed to be included in the companionship God shares as Father, Son
I was designed for the comfort of safety, security, value, and worth within the Perfect Love God experiences, but I have found myself alone and often afraid – far away from love.
I was designed to belong with God and to be included in His plans and purposes, with one heart, one mind, one purpose (P
Still, the longing to return to this home of intimacy and inclusion, where I would be fully and lovingly embraced by God, tugs at my soul. There is something strangely familiar with this concept of home, it seems. It’s a sadness, or a loneliness, as though something deep cries out of my soul to be remembered. Something I was designed for. I know this is where I belong, within His love. This is home for my whole being. It is why I continue the search.
I believe in that ultimate place, in God’s presence, where one day I will be home, but until I get there – a journey out of my control – Christ comes and lives within me,
“I pray that…he may strengthen you…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…that you…[will be] established in love” (Ephesians 3:16-17, NIV).
Everything about who He is as God is Love, dwells within me, He settles in, and makes my heart His dwelling place. He makes His home deep within. In being at home within me, He is awakening in me what it is like to be home in that one-day place. He is gradually redefining love within me. He is healing me of broken love. He is redeeming, restoring, returning, renewing, all that has been lost between us. The love I should have always known and lived inside of is being bought again to me, awakened within my soul, by His living within.
What makes Heaven home, is living in the presence of Love, and until I get there, Love instead comes to live within me. What He does within me gives me a glimpse of Heaven. And as He does what He does within, it is
With only a glimpse of this beginning to form in my life, I cannot yet verbalise or describe what I have begun to feel. But perhaps it is like the story in the beautiful movie, August Rush –
Maxwell “Wizard” Wallace, houses street orphans and runaways and employs them to play music on the streets while taking a large cut of their tips. He has Evan in his care – a child
found.
He longs to be found. He longs to belong and to know that those who gave him life are looking for him and want him to be with them. That somehow they just got lost from each other and will not give up until they are together found.
Our boy, who came to live with us when he was 17, had no knowledge of his mum or her family, other than that she had died when he was 3 years of age. He had been raised by his dad and aunty and had been told very little of this other part of his life. His dad passed away, and he came as a refugee to New Zealand. Into his 20’s he began a Facebook search to try and find out any little piece of information about his mum’s side of the family. He wanted answers to so many questions he had about who he was. After no luck the first time, he was encouraged again a few years later to do another serious search for them. Unexpectedly, yet almost immediately, came emotional reply after reply, when one family member recognized a photo he posted on Facebook, and the news spread quickly to the rest. Within hours of this photo being recognized, the family made contact with him and told him those precious words his soul had been longing to hear, we have been looking for you. Since the time he had left with his dad, this family had been searching for him and he never knew it. He rang my husband, burst into tears and cried, I found them! They had found him and he had found them. The sense of belonging, that he had not been abandoned, that they wanted him, that he had a place and a people who loved him, and had never given up hope of finding him, was so overwhelming it took him a while to begin to comprehend it all. But the impact was incredible.
Like the sense of home, this feeling of being found speaks deeply to our souls. We have gotten lost. Sin has ripped us away from the One who gave us life and has orphaned us. In this place of lost, we are constantly empty and searching, longing to find some one, some place, or some thing that will make us feel like we have been found, that we belong, we are wanted, we fit. Though we have gotten lost, we have never been lost to God. When we finally are awakened to it, being found is our resting place. Like the deep soul sigh that breathes the word, finally. Within the embrace of God’s
Continued in next week’s blog…