homesick

I think about home a lot.

I have a hard time defining, even to myself, what I mean by "home." Uganda is the place I associate with home, but Uganda is no longer the place I left and I am no longer the person who left it. My family lives in Abilene. I live in Searcy. They're both somehow homey now. I'm not homesick for those places, though.

I'm realizing now that I'm not homesick for a spot on the globe or even for an identity within a community. I'm homesick for the surprisingly beautiful glimpses of eternity in humanity.

I'm homesick for those moments when I open my eyes during team devo singing and see worship in the faces of people I love, for the times when I'm praying with a friend and masks are stripped away before God's holy presence. I'm homesick for the times when I want to be with God, living all out for him, so badly that the most eloquent words won't do justice to my desire for him. I'm homesick for the moments of complete clarity when I see the truth about the evil of my sin and then feel God's grace rush in to cover it.

Those are the kinds of things I want, and none of them are tied to this earth. They are pieces of eternity held by God's people, and they are the closest I've ever come to home. I don't know what heaven will be like, but it will be home. The most precious moments in my memory will be magnified and become an eternal reality.

I'm homesick, and it's a bittersweet feeling, but it's absolutely right. I don't want to stop feeling homesick until I'm really home.