Headed Home

Finishing my meetings today and I will be headed home.

There is often a renewing that I get when I am away. I have extra time to pray, think, mediate and I try to schedule at least one evening as a 'short retreat'.

But there is no place like home. Home is the place where my wife is. God gave her to me as the perfect one for my sanctification and my care. In the last three decades we have grown together, closer and closer so that when we are apart, it is like missing a part of me, a part of my heart.

Home is where my children are. I miss the familiar way we live together, the way our lives are intertwined. I miss the hugs, the laughter, the WALKS!!

Home is where my Brian and Christine are. I miss my loving trash talk with Brian, my heart-to-hearts. I am grateful to God for where he has brought our relationship after some very difficult years. I am so proud of him. Christine is my daughter, she was just born into a different family. I sit here and my eyes well with tears as I think about how she has pursued the grace of God for growth in her life.

And there are two other little people who's names escape me. As we say it at our house, 'spell it'.

Grace, grace, grace. I have been given so much better than I deserve. Have you thought about all the good that you have been given? What do you deserve? Eternal separation from God! But instead I have her, them, a church family that I would not exchange for...exchange for...I would not exchange them for the rest of my life...please Lord?