HOME SWEET HOME

HOME SWEET HOME

The grey concrete hammers my feet and riddles my body with exhausting intensity. The sun seems to be shining only on me…but not that balmy summer warmth sunbathers enjoy. It was a brutal heat aimed to destroy my hope and crush my joy. I was standing in a line that permeated with the smell of body odor, urine and booze. The long line of men, women and children swayed in the merciless heat. Although I felt so alone, my young mother and two sisters huddle around closely. Daily we would stand in this rotting line of hot bodies and drunken sorts in hopes of getting a place to shower, eat and sleep safely.
I was twelve and homeless. The surrounding scenery of those days were filled with people sleeping in cardboard boxes, pushing shopping carts that held everything they owned while holding out their hands to strangers passing by. I learned to look the other way, to keep my eyes forward and my broken family closer. The days were unpredictable never knowing where the hard streets and blistering sidewalks would take us but everyday they led back to the hot, crowded sidewalk outside the homeless shelter.

Although the details of those days still live in my memory, I have been so far removed from that time, making them like watching a scene from a TV show. God lifted me and my family out of that life and gave me a hope and a future that he promises us all (Jeremiah 29:11). I have been given a life filled with a godly husband, beautiful kids, supportive family, good friends and a beautiful home. I live a very contented life, far from the homeless twelve year old I once was.

So I thought. Just recently, I was reminded that I am still “homeless.” This world is not my home. God showed me that we all live, spiritually speaking, in our cardboard boxes, some fancier than others, and if life is only about what we have in our shopping carts, then we will remain homeless, or as Jesus observed, “wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked.” Revelation 3:17. So many of us are pushing our shopping carts around fooled by thinking they are full of things that can bring us happiness and if we can just get that “one more” thing we will be fulfilled. We are lulled into building additions to our cardboard boxes competing with each other to see whose boxes are bigger and better. We all fall for the idea that happiness can be found in this world by our things, boxes, buggies and bags. We are tricked into thinking these cardboard mansions are all there is. “The purist of all happiness”. “Home sweet home”.

Yet again God reminds me this world is not my home. I still remain homeless. He reminds me that Jesus will come back someday and take me home. To my real “home sweet home”. To a home that cannot even began to compare to the most elegant, palatial cardboard boxes of this world. My heavenly father whispers the gentle reminder to not get comfortable here for I am sending your Brother Jesus to take you home. Jesus is coming to take me to the mansion that God has prepared just for me. God reminds me, “My mansion has many rooms, room enough for anyone who chooses to hold lightly to the things of this world and invest in the eternal”. A home awaits us where gold is used to cover the streets and precious jewels are the walls. Our eyes have never seen anything so beautiful our minds cannot even begin to imagine the majesty of our real home! Until then I am homeless.

While I am away from my real home, I cannot be surprised if things get tough or if happiness is not found in my lifetime. We have not been promised happiness on this earth, only a peace to deal with the pain and suffering in a fallen world – a world that is not our eternal destination or a world that is not our home. If and when things get difficult here, it is because we are all homeless. This is not our home. We will be home soon, but if we try to make this world our home, we will forever be frustrated and ultimately devastated.