No Place Like Home

We returned home late Saturday afternoon after two very busy weeks in Florida.  We criss-crossed that state, from Tampa to Fort Myers to Titusville to Orlando and back to Tampa before returning home.

While we were there we spent time with family and friends.  We ate at some of our favorite restaurants, and tried a couple of new ones.  We went to our grandson's birthday party.  Al worked; I relaxed.  And we experienced some of Florida's winter weather.

Here at home, while we were away, winter weather was a little different than the winter we were experiencing in Florida.  It was zero degrees when we left here, and it got colder before it got warmer.  And there was a lot of snow.

We experienced none of that in Florida.  We had some gorgeous sunny 80-degree days.  And we had a few rainy days, some of them quite cool by Florida standards.  In fact, we chuckled a bit on a 50-degree morning in Fort Myers when we saw Floridians wearing coats and scarves and mittens!  Here in the mountains, as well as for our friends further to the north, 50 degrees would be a balmy spring day!  It's all about perspective, I guess.

I enjoyed the trip.  I especially loved our time with Brian, Emily, and Christopher.  I would have loved even more of that! 

But I confess that I was glad to come home.  Glad to sleep in my own bed with my own pillow.  Glad to sit in my own comfy chair and drink my coffee from my own favorite mug.  Even glad to cook my own dinner.  Restaurants are great, but after a while, a regular home-cooked meal is a really good thing.

It's good to be home.  How much better it will be when I'm "finally home"!
Because, as the old gospel song says, "This world is not my home, I'm just
a-passin' through."

The joy of that home will not be in my own pillow or my own coffee mug, but in being in the presence of the Savior who died to give me that eternal home. 

What a joy that will be!  Truly then we will be able to say "there's no place like home"!

Just think of stepping on shore and finding it heaven,

 of touching a hand and finding it God's,

of breathing new air and finding it celestial,

of waking up in glory and finding it home.
(-Don Wyrtzen, emphasis mine)

[Jesus said], "Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God; believe also in Me.  In my Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you.  If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also."  (John 14:1-3 NASB)