Oh, There’s No Place Like Home {for the holidays}

Ten years ago last week, with joy too great for words, I welcomed my sweetheart home for the holidays. And ten years ago today, he put a ring on it.

Fresh from Middle Eastern soil, he was thin and tired, but God had brought him home. He was safely back home to his family and to me, and all the world seemed right that Christmas.

Members of the armed forces are not the only ones who dream of being home for Christmas. College students return home to their families, new grandbabies are brought home to proud grandparents, and empty nesters keep watch at the front door for car headlights to top the driveway late on Christmas Eve. Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays.

But the ache for those who are missing home this year is also keenly felt throughout the season. Loneliness is often felt more acutely this week than at any other time of the year. Perhaps money is too tight this season for the flight home, or the job keeps your alarm clock buzzing like usual during Christmas week. Sometimes, going home is just not an option, and the disappointment rubs raw.

Even those who will be waking up Christmas morning to the sights, sounds, and smells of mama’s breakfast or to children’s happy squeals, we too are sometimes surprised by the ache in our hearts for who else we’re missing…..grandmothers and grandfathers who are absent, wombs and cradles found empty, and estranged family members who don’t show up.

In our joy this Christmas, and in our heart’s ache for home, why don’t we indulge our pinings for a bit? Because that familiar ache in your soul to be home is a precious shadow of the eternal home for which we long.

My grandmother’s buttered biscuits, my aunt’s chocolate cobbler, and my mom’s piping hot, ever-flowing coffee pot allow my heart to feel the rest and comfort that says, “Aahhhhh… I’m home.” But these beautiful, warm memories are simply fleeting, passing glimpses of an eternal reality.

Oh, how our God is gracious to give our souls a taste of earthly longings for home so that we can begin to just barely comprehend all that is waiting for us if our souls are among the redeemed whose names are inscribed on the palms of His hands (Isaiah 49:16).

To us, He has promised that He’s gone ahead to prepare a place for us. And although we cannot soar to that home based on our own merit or in our own abilities, we enter that eternal home through Jesus, for He is the Door who says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:1-6)

Only those who come to God through Jesus enter that eternal rest, home forever. And if you have never come to the Father by way of His Son, Jesus, His Spirit calls to you, “COME.” And may I join in? I ask you to “COME.” (Revelation 22:17)

If you’re thirsty and tired, longing for home, come take the water of life without price. You will never find rest apart from Jesus, and He calls to your soul, “COME to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). And when you believe on Him, trusting in Him for the forgiveness of your sins, you enter that rest forever. (Hebrews 4:3)

Because He’s gone ahead to prepare that eternal home for us, He’ll be back for us soon, and we’ll enter that eternal rest, where our souls will heave a glorious, eternal sigh, saying, “Aahhhhh… I’m home.”

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:1-6