Nostalgia

There is something about knowing a season, a time, a place is coming to an end that makes you appreciate it more.  The past week I have cleaned (and cleaned and straightened and cleaned) this sweet little bungalow so that it will be in "show condition".  As I've swept from room to room, I have become more and more aware of how much I will miss living here.  Its not that I haven't appreciated it for the past year and a half.  I have, a lot.  But when you are faced with an end, that appreciation seems to become more intense.  I will miss the big rooms, the picture window we play in every day.  I will miss the sun rising in the dining room, and sitting with E on her bed watching it set and discovering all the colors it makes.  I will miss students randomly stopping by, and waving at my girls going to class out the big window.  I will miss my uh-mazing kitchen.

I am sad to leave this place.  This city, this life, but more so, this home.  We have made so many memories here.  And we've only been here a short while.  But, in my sadness, I am thankful.  I am thankful that I know the Lord will give us another place that will become "home" and that it will be perfect in its own way.  Im thankful for a new season of life and new memories to be made.  But most of all, I am thankful for the reminder that this world is not our home.  It is a passing, fleeting season.  One God has been gracious enough to make enjoyable for us.  But we were made for a different world, a heavenly one.  We are here to know Christ and make Him known, and then we will leave.  It will be over, and we will go, in joy, to our real heavenly, perfect, with-Christ home.  And it will be glorious.  Far better than any home we attempt to make here. "This is just a stop on the way to where we're goin."

The first time I heard this song I wept....like a baby (and just did again!). Its a good reminder (and MAN....can this girl sing!  What a display of the Lord's creativity!).