Both of my daughters and their families have come home for a visit this summer, and our time spent together has been wonderful. Each one had a list of activities, meals, restaurants, and places they wanted to go that came straight from their childhood summers spent here on the Outer Banks. We relived those experiences, and hope that their children will consider OBX to be their summer home just like their Mamas still do. Home is that place you return to for love, rest, peace, and joy.

A week ago Sat. my church gathered in our Sanctuary and said goodbye to one of our oldest church members. But what we were really saying was Welcome Home. Jesus wanted us to understand that our one TRUE home is with him in heaven. He even promised to go ahead of us and make the beds.

John 14 (The Message)

 You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”

Think about the word HOME for a moment. What does home mean to you?

1. HOME is a place to REFUGE when life implodes around you. 2. HOME is a place of REUNINTING with loved ones, where forgiveness, acceptance and mending take place. And 3. HOME is a place of REJOICING, where love is served on plates around a table.

When I think of home being a place of refuge, I immediately think of traveling home on semester breaks from college. I lived too far away to come home on weekends and so those Christmas and Spring breaks were life-giving to me. I can remember hauling my suitcase to the Greyhound bus station in State College, PA to ride for about 5 ½ hours to south New Jersey. Finally coming home to my house on 5 Chatham, to my parents, my dog, to my bedroom…. all the stress, text anxiety, all-nighters, the roommate issues, and my responsibilities would just melt away the instant I crossed that threshold and yelled “I’m home!!”  And for the next week, life was easy again, if only temporarily. 

Have you ever come home from a lousy day at work or school and felt that relief of that safe place? Have you ever returned to your childhood home or your grandparents’ home and experienced the comfort that it brought all over again? The HOME that we have with our Great God in heaven will be ten times better than that…. it will be a place of rest and refuge. Life is filled with chaos and confusion, but in heaven, we find our true home in God. And that, my friends, is a reason to rejoice.

And we know the road that will take us there. All who believe in Jesus shall not perish but have eternal life. Do you believe? Have you given your life to Christ? It is never too late.

Welcome Home.

The Road Home by Becca Ziegler