“Our lives continually drift away from their true home.” -Pauses for Lent, p. 11

“Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity would have been… The greater the sin, the greater the mercy: the deeper the death, the brighter the rebirth. And this super-added glory will, with true vicariousness, exalt all creatures and those who have never fallen will thus bless Adam’s fall. — Preparing for Easter, p. 11

This sign was waiting for me after being gone from home for one night in July. I left it up on the garage door for months because isn't that a nice thing to come home to every day? WELCOME HOME. Why, thank you.

We no longer live in the home that held this sign, but it withstood all the late summer southern storms, a small earthquake, and a mild hurricane. The only reason we took it down is because we moved; it was a casualty of the pack-it-up-and-move-it-out process. And, funnily enough, we went from that home to our home-home, our hometown home. The place where we came from, where we were raised, where we would now raise our daughter. The military and a couple different civilian jobs brought us all around for 15 years. And now here we are, settling into a new life that feels familiar but is entirely new.

It’s great to come home, though, isn’t it? Especially when it’s of our own free will. How many jokes did our parents and cousins make over the years, trying to get us to move home? Yet, it means more now because we did it of our volition.

God loves to welcome us home. The devotions from today in both Pauses and Preparing for Easter talk about the graciousness of redemption, of how the redeeming quality of humanity brings us home to God in a way we never would have experienced had Eve not taken that darn apple.

The falling and wandering are essential components of the coming home.

We experience this ‘coming home’ when we experience redemption. When a deep hurt or heartache is redeemed. When we experience forgiveness from a friend, a spouse, or a child. When something we thought had been dismissed is acknowledge. When something we thought was forever lost is now forever found.

I don't know the specifics of what you've been through this year, but I know the last twelve months have been anything but balanced. Maybe your unbalancing started way before that. I know that an unbalancing gives way to an unsettling, which makes our hearts and spirits feel far from that settled-at-home thing we all long for. The kind of home that lets our whole selves breathe. Maybe you’ve been waiting to come home, to experience redemption, since long ago.

That’s one opportunity of this Lenten season, I suppose. To reset our course to its true North, to our creator who made us, you and me, for a million different on-purpose reasons. God doesn’t make accidents; that would rub against his very nature of perfection. So as you think about how far you’ve wandered from home and you wonder if you can ever find your way back, the answer is yes. God loves to open His arms after a long day, a long week, a long year. No matter the storms that swirl around and within us, there He stands. Steady. Constant. Available. Loving. True.

May you walk back into your heavenly Father's Welcome Home, lay your heart at His feet, and rest well.

Tell me about you. When was the last time your heart wished it could feel at home?