HOME

I was encouraged to focus my attention on Home. Home, being heaven. I know that this time on earth is only temporary but there is a longing for home. It has been mulling around inside me head all weekend. Have you ever been homesick? I have been feeling that way a lot lately. That longing for a place where you know you belong. Where you fit in and a place you know you are loved and wanted. Home... well, I know there is a place where I belong but I will never find it here on earth.

Turtles... that is what kept coming back to my mind. You know.. they carry their home around with them. In many ways we carry our home in hearts but our temporary home is our shell. Do you ever wonder why it feels like the weight of the world is on your back? Well, like a turtle, we have a shell, a body that is not our eternal body. We take on so much of what the world throws at us. We try to find a place of belonging. If we look at anything the world has for us we will always just add more weight to our bodies. We will never be wealthy enough, powerful enough, smart enough, funny enough, friendly enough, giving enough, skinny enough, beautiful enough... never enough of anything because there is always something more someone expects of us. We are not expected to be any of those things. We are children of God. We are his and he asks us to be light. To love one another and the greatest part is that he doesn't expect it to come from anything of our own, He gives us the love we need to share. Everything we need, we already have, in HIM!!
I think of how we seem to be running a race, carrying the weight of the world on these little stubby legs. Does it ever feel like you are just spinning your wheels and never moving. When we look around at the rest of the world, it seems they are rabbits. Racing ahead of us in leaps and bounds. Running without a care in the world. Mocking us as they run circles around us. The problem is, they are running, to the next big thing out there. You, my little turtle friend, are running home. It is not a race, we will get there when God decides. Until then, he lets our pace be slow. He has much to show us and teach us along the way. Things that are easily overlooked and missed by the rest of the world as they race on. You see, there is a light that guides us as we poke our heads out of our shell.
Does it ever seem that there are days when you just get no where? You are in the same place? Maybe some kids came along and found you, tipped you over and laughed as you kicked your legs in the air hoping to turn yourself upright. Yeah, sometimes our worlds get turned upsided down. Somehow we turn ourselves around and get moving again. And sometimes, all it takes is a friend to walk the So, when I focus on the light, the light of His glory. The new body that awaits, the streets of gold, the mansion awaiting.... well, it gives that little bit of strength needed to take the next step. These shells serve us well, but they are only temporary. They slow us down enough to allow us to see the world around us, to feel the hurts, to see the beauty, to enjoy all that is here and to imagine all that is to come. Journey on little turtle.

If you feel like a turtle, and are longing for a home other than the one on your back... keep walking, keep running the race. Keep your eyes fixed on the eternal not the temporary.

II Corinthians 4:17 -18 ~ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eterna.