Home Sweet Home?

           

           This past winter, cooped up by unrelenting snow and cold, I found myself constantly searching for a beach house where we could vacation and lie in the sun. In fact, I obsessed on this search until I found and booked “the one.”  I literally counted the weeks and days until we were able to make our escape to the beach this summer. At the same time, I knew our time away would seem all too short; and even before we got there, I was dreading how quickly it would go by. I’m very grateful for our wonderful family vacation, but I’m already longing to return to another “dream house” by the ocean.

            I should be content where I am. We live in a lovely home in a friendly neighborhood.  We moved out here nearly three years ago so that we could accommodate my aging parents. We left behind our beloved family “homestead” where we raised our nine children and lived for twenty-three years. To say the move was difficult would be an understatement, but we felt clearly that God would have us take this step. Despite all that we have grown to love and enjoy about our new house, it somehow still doesn’t feel quite like “home.” My husband and I often find ourselves talking about the next house, a special house just for us, our “dream house.”

             Meanwhile, I post interior decorating ideas that catch my eye on a Pinterest board. I likely won’t ever be able to afford them, but it’s fun to dream about possibilities. Similarly, my mother-in-law kept a manila folder labeled “dream house,” filled with pictures of designs and features she liked. Sadly, at just fifty-four, she died of cancer before having the opportunity of living in her “dream house.” As sad as this is, I am confident that she is with the Lord, and that she is now in a far more beautiful heavenly home than we can ever dream or imagine.

            My faith in that heavenly home causes me to wonder if my constant longing and desire for my “dream house” is really my longing and desire for heaven. As fabulous as some places and houses in this world may be, they will ultimately leave us dissatisfied and yearning for something more. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis so eloquently phrased this idea:  “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Home sweet home? Sounds like heaven to me.