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Have you even been away from home? Have you ever been away from home for so long that you begin to wonder, "Just, where is home again?" Well, this is where I find myself this year! The last 4 years at Christmas time, I have spent in a foreign country. Czech, Turkey, and Sweden have been the places where I have opened up gifts and remembered Jesus' birth! But this year, I will return to the States and spend Christmas with my family and the holidays with my friends! I return not as a prodigal child in way of having been gone spending money in foolish ways and wasting away all that has been given me... but rather I return as a sort of prodigal (which can also mean: having or giving something on a lavish scale) meaning that I return to my roots, I return to where I left, I return 'home', but I return having been lavished on; I return having been given so much; I return having so much! I may not have much in way of the physical (money, things...) but I have, in these last now 5 years been given something that one can never return to the store or give back to the person who gave it to them. I have been given experiences in which I have learned about other cultures, other peoples, other ways of life. I have been given insight, encouragement. I have been given more understanding of who I am, and who God is to me. I have been given numerous opportunities (some seized and some missed) to just be His hands and feet! And most of all I have been given 'HOME'. My new HOME can never replace my roots and can never shadow over what was built in me from birth! BUT my new HOME is filled with friends and those friends who have become family! And I realize that no matter where I am... America, Czech, Turkey, North Africa, Asia, or somewhere else in Europe, I am at HOME. It is there I have the opportunity to build relationships; it is there I have the privilege of gaining family; it is there that I find God. He is Immanuel, God with US! Not God with ME! But God with US! So where I find and build and maintain relationships- THAT is where God is! And that is where I am AT HOME!!! So this Advent season as we focus on love, joy, peace, and hope... may we not forget to focus on those relationships with friends, family, and perfect strangers! And may We find Immanuel in His truest form- IN RELATIONSHIP!
