Prepared.

Twelve hours.

That’s how long I slept the first night I was home. In my own bed.

Twelve hours.
I haven’t slept for twelve hours in, hmm, let’s see:

1,2,3…..7 years.

And that was after I had been awake for something crazy like 52 hours because I had been travelling back from overseas (that was actually the time that I slept 14 hours….so at least I didn’t beat my record THIS time).

I guess this summer of coming and going and being all over the place all the time wrecked me a little bit.

OR ELSE  it could be because I felt guilty if I ever slept past 7:00 a.m. because I didn’t want the people I was staying with to think I was a worthless girl who did nothing but lounge…
Anyway.
All that to say is I am home.

Home. What a concept.

Maybe you have picked up on this in your reading of my blog, but small, everyday things bring to mind spiritual parallels for me, or they show me stark contrasts between God’s Kingdom and my world.

But home, I can’t help but think about Heaven whenever I hear the word. And I hear the word a lot because if you have been reading for almost any period of time you KNOW I LOVE homes and houses.
While you do know that, I am confident, I don’t know if I have told you this before, but one of the most important passages to me in all of the Bible is John 14:1-4:

 “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 where I am going.”

I remember the first time I “got it.” I was walking into my room after having been gone for a few weeks either on a missions trip or a conference, or something along those lines, and after having been around groups of people for so long, with no place of my own, to finally walk into my bedroom…sigh. A place with my name on it.

A place prepared for me.
I knew right then and there that Heaven will have a door with my name on it. A place created just for me…by Him.
So to sleep for twelve hours, to know rest in a place prepared for me, it just gave me a taste of Heaven, you know? A taste of my true home.
Something to look forward to.
Something I want to help others understand, whether it be through a spirit of hospitality that I hope to have envelop me, or through having people in to my home, whatever. I want to help people know that heaven is real, and living through the hardships and heartaches and burdens of this life really WILL be worth it. Why?
Because Home is coming.

A few years ago during my devotions a little phrase jumped into my head. One that I think could appropriately hang above the gates of Heaven:

                                                                Leave your baggage at the door;

                                                                      He’ll take it from here.

 

I think I might go paint something like that above my front door right now.