The mail lies on the counter where someone placed it in his comings and goings. I pick up a pastel-colored envelope with a return address of only “Home”. I smile as I slit open the envelope and pull out a note from my mom. Though I haven’t lived there for 23 years, I still picture my basement bedroom. I know that any time I return for a visit, the room is waiting for me with the bed made up and a supply of clean towels.
We recently returned home from a week-long trip. As we walked through the door, I felt myself exhale. I had enjoyed the places we’d been, the people we had met and the experiences we’d had. Yet, walking through the back door and seeing everything just as we’d left it — it was a blissful feeling. It was the feeling of coming home.
When we visited my husband’s childhood home after the passing of his mother, nothing felt quite the same. She was no longer there in her favorite chair or bustling about the kitchen. My children grew up in a home where strangers now live. While some nostalgia grips us when driving past, there is no pull to bound up the steps as they did for many years. Home is only a special place because of the people that are there.
Back at the beginning of time, God gave a garden home to the first man and woman. He told them to take charge of it, fill it and care for it. He was there with them, and it was a place of peace, love and beauty. When their sin marred their beautiful home, God promised a Savior to redeem it for them. Jesus came to the marred world many centuries later. He again walked with His creation. But this time, He paid the ultimate price for their sin — His own life. However, death is too small a chain for the Creator of the universe and the Savior of mankind. He rose to life again so He wouldn’t be remembered as a martyr or idolized as a good teacher. His resurrection placed Him in another category altogether. When He defeated death, He reversed the curse sin had placed on that first couple and, consequently, on their home.
This is why when I return to my childhood home or the home where we currently reside, I still feel a bit of restlessness. Jesus said when He left this earth over 2,000 years ago that He was going to prepare a place for us. He is preparing a beautiful home in Heaven for us. It is a place of beauty, food, music, conversation, meaningful work, reunion with all the people we love and have loved, and worship of our Creator. It is a place of welcome and complete belonging. But most of all, it is Home because our Savior has prepared it and will live there with us forever.
My focus on Eternity this year is more than just a spiritual exercise. I want to make my home reflect my ultimate Home in every way I can. That’s why I take care to share the little glimpses of Heaven I see in my everyday life. I know my supper dish or floral decoration doesn’t compare to the beauty of that final Home. I know that the relationships that make our house a home to us are imperfect. But we want Jesus to live here with us in anticipation of that day when we will see Him with our eyes. He doesn’t come to my house or yours because it’s perfectly clean or the food is exceptional. But every time, we create a bit of beauty or order or laughter, we are doing our human best to mirror that Place and that Person.
I am a daughter who has lived through 18 years of growing and maturing at home with parents and siblings. I am a woman who has lived through nearly 23 years of marriage. I have mothered four children through countless joys, sorrows, sleepless nights and exciting accomplishments for over 20 years. I know, like you know, that life at home is far from heavenly at times. There are messes and sharp words spoken. There are periods of illness and emotional pain. There are leaky faucets, dings in the wall and limited budgets for anything but the basics. There are terrifying phone calls and depressing set backs. Sometimes the carefully made bed with piles of pillows becomes our cocoon from the outside world — for days.
With all the imperfection of our earthly homes, I firmly believe they are worth redeeming. The culture has made home into many different things: a museum, a launching pad for “real life”, a way to show off our entertaining abilities or our monetary status. However, the beauty in the place God is preparing is created for those He loves. The reason we all yearn for that Place is because of the Person Who prepares and inhabits it.
Maybe you don’t long for a home with God. Perhaps you don’t yet know Him. Let me assure you that whether I introduce you or you go find Him yourself, He wants to welcome you to His home. He longs to be the Person Who fills your home with love and light now. And that home He’s preparing in Heaven has enough room for you to have a place, if you want one.
May I ask you to join me today in making home a beautiful place filled with love, laughter and peace? Whether that means farmhouse or traditional style, chunky white mugs or delicate tea cups, a lived-in feel with favorite belongs around you or a minimalist feel with clutter removed, a sprawling mansion or a cozy cottage — make it yours, make it a home for those you love and most of all, make it His.
You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.
Augustine, in his Confessions