A Tourist in His Hometown
What if my pursuit for familiarity is a feeble effort to achieve a feeling only my future eternity can provide? I think I might be chasing something endlessly. Perhaps that makes me a fool, maybe an adult stuck in a childish cycle. But my restless heart is both terrified and disappointed due to the lack. I simultaneously want to be home and yet I am home. Feeling misplaced is a funny thing, really. Actually, to be human is the most paradoxical reality. But those thoughts are for another day.
He says home is wherever we are. And I suppose when he’s been on the road for days on end, the moment we are reunited must produce a tremendous feeling of relief. But what about us? Our days are spent celebrated like a vacation. A beach, a lake, starry nights, and painted sunsets. Tourists in his hometown, we casually tread through each hour with spontaneity. We stop at a coffee shop, purchase a new outfit, chat with a local, eat the ice cream, and go to bed pondering on the strangeness of our life. How did we end up here? Where are we going?
She’s too little to feel the confusion. I’m just old enough to recognize the strangeness of the situation. And he’s wise enough to remember the challenges of today are the flickering embers of a vibrant future. I wish I had that kind of faith.
But back to my first thought. How can I feel such a longing for places and people of the past and present? Like I said, I wonder if these feelings are misplaced glimpses of worship. We are looking for something (semi) permanent. Stable in the sense that in this lifetime, I have zero desire to do this again anywhere else on this side of heaven. Temporary in the sense that maybe these longings are intended to be utters of worship for our forever, eternal home. The home of safety and peace, the home of all angels and saints.
Today, I’m still a tourist in his hometown. We will walk the beach shore, enjoying the last glimmers of the summer sun. I hope that with the autumn leaves will come a security of a new (semi) permanent stability. Today, I want my home to have a house. And those subtle whispers of longing will be shared in both the dreams for today and the promises for our forever.
