Going Home Again

My husband and I had extra time on our hands.
It was the day of our nephew’s wedding.
We had an hour and a half before we had to go to the reception.
We decided to do something different.

We went back to my old neighborhood.
We drove around…down memory lane.
My husband asked if I wanted to see my old house.
I hadn’t been back there in years.

We drove down what used to be familiar streets.
They looked so different to me now.
Trees had grown so large in the thirty plus years since I lived there.
Nothing looked the same to me.

I was glad he was driving because I know I would have made some wrong turns.

We turned the corner and I saw my old house.
White with black shutters…was now cream with red shutters.
One garage…the mailbox still next to the front door, waiting for the mailman to arrive.
The same lamppost that was once struck by lightning.

The house seemed so small to me.
The driveway was much shorter than I remember.
The houses on my street used to be so far apart.
When I was finally allowed to walk to a friend’s house by myself, I thought I walked so far.

There was a large tree on the front lawn that I always wanted to climb.
But never did!
The tree was not there…in fact most of the original landscaping had been removed.

The house was so very different.
But then…so am I.
Nothing remains the same.

My husband remembered more about my street than I did.
He used to walk three miles to my house, during the energy crisis in the late 1970’s.
There were lines at all of the gas stations; people walked whenever they could.
Once at the pump, you could only buy $5.00 worth of gas.

I was looking at my childhood house through adult eyes.
I couldn’t see it.
Not any more!
It was a bittersweet moment for me.

My husband wanted to take my picture outside of my old house.
I didn’t want him to…
The house belonged to someone else now.
I wanted to remember it the way it was…not the way it is now.

What I experienced happens to many of us.
We go back to our old school and the massive hallways now seem so narrow.
We look at our old playground and it is hard to believe that the monkey bars were ever a problem for us to climb.

My sons have picked their younger sister up from high school on occasions, when they are home on break.
It looks so different, Mom! I never looked that young when I was in school!

Frame of reference.
Time marches on…as it should.
You really can’t go back again!

Imagine placing yourself in your old desk…or in your old room.
Things that were once so familiar now seem strange and awkward.
You are looking at your life…through the eyes of maturity.
Eyes that have experienced life beyond those four walls.

Those places are so vitally important to who we are now.
They are part of our history…our story…our past.
They can never be erased.
We are grateful for the memories…for the moments that formed us.

Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you. (Mark 5:19)

The old saying…Life is lived forward but understood backwards…is so true!
It is all about perspective.

In Christ, our perspective becomes His perspective.
We have grown…physically, emotionally, spiritually.
We have grown in Him.

You can’t go home again…back to the way you were.
You can only return the way you are.
You go back to the same place…but with a different heart.

Time passes…days, months, years.
Change happens.
Sometimes, it takes going back to see how much you have grown.

There is a Home that will never feel strange.
There is a Home that is eternally placed in our hearts.
There is a Home that we long for…a restlessness that we can’t even begin to explain.

We will go Home someday…and it will look wonderfully familiar.
It will not be awkward or strange.
It will be our true Home.

Their mind is on earthy things. But our citizenship is in heaven. (Philippians 3:19,20)

Earthly homes will always have something lacking.
Our heavenly Home is perfect.
Perfect because HE is there.

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. 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. You know the way to the place I am going…I am the way, and the truth, and the life. (John 14:1-4,6)

Follow Him…to a familiar Place.
The Place your heart longs for.
The Place you were created to be all along.
Home.