AWAY FROM HOME

Last week my grandma, who is 96 years old, moved into a new home. She has lived in the same small town her entire life and this move to assisted living, about an hour away from her hometown, is a practical, necessary move at this stage in her life. She is now close to my mom and dad and my sister, Coleen, and they will be able to visit her often. The girls and I traveled to see Grandma earlier this week and it was hard to see her so disoriented and unhappy. She just wants to go home.

As I was driving to and from my visit with Grandma, I thought a lot about "home". I am a home-body. I like to be home. It is safe and comfortable and I can be myself there. I can understand why this move is hard for Grandma. But I've been thinking about what the Bible says about home . . . that this world is not my real home. That I am like an alien and stranger on earth (1 Peter 2:11). That we are longing for a better country in heaven and that God has prepared a city for us there (Hebrews 11:15-16).

Grandma was so sad that she refused to let me take her picture with the girls. So I am including a picture, taken last September when we celebrated Grandma's 95th birthday.


When I got home on Tuesday night, I read this poem in my devotional book (this is the final stanza):
And now "my Home is God", and sheltered there,
God meets the trials of my earthly life,
God compasses me round from storm and strife,
God takes the burden of my daily care.
O wondrous Place! O Home divinely fair!
And I, God's little one, safe hidden there.
Lord, as I dwell in You and You in me,
So make me dead to everything but Thee;
That as I rest within my Home most fair,
My soul may evermore and only see
My God in everything and everywhere;
My Home is God -- author unknown

Grandma with 9 of her 13 great-grandkids.


"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms . . . I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."
--Jesus (John 14:1-3)