Family are home again – some of them for a few days, some for longer.

Some needing to re- group and find out what is next, another is needing to be here and be cared for, even pampered for a while, another – planning. One or two missing special people in their lives… all together, yet at different stages and seasons of their lives.

I love how “home” is a place they can return to for these purposes. Where they are accepted, fed, nurtured and rested for the next part of their journey.

I pondered over “Home” and how we all need homes… natural ones, obviously, but also the home of relationship and life with God.  I also began to see that we need to “go home” now and again . . . we need the regrouping, the place of being back to where life is familiar and safe… (Ok sometimes boring!) but a place where we can re-focus on what is important and what comes next!

Some of us have “homes” with family and trusted people where we can go for this very thing, but others don’t have a place they can call “home”… a place where they can slob out on the couch and be cared for, listened to, fed, watered, get the dirty laundry done and know that it’s safe !

I remembered that the 5th Century Saint, Augustine’s key thought was that “the heart is restless until it finds its home in God” . I see that over and above the places we can call “home”, we also need to have that place in God where we know we can return, find peace, we can weep, or shout it all out, where we can rest in His presence and find He  cares so much for us, washes our “dirty laundry”, feeds us and helps us refocus on some of the basics and simple things of “home”.

Maybe, where you are today… you need to “come home”… either naturally, or returning to God, His ways and His “home

Do you know? – maybe you’ve forgotten? – He waits for you and watches for your return – and what is more He doesn’t criticise your choices, He hasn’t got a punishment waiting for you, but He has open arms, a huge welcome and a refurbishment of your life!

Maybe it’s time to come home… you’ve been missed!

Welcome Home!