Home?

"Blessed is the man (woman) whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca (tears), they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion." Psalm 84:5-7

The last line of this psalm proclaims that all who trust in the Lord are blessed. I want to be blessed, but I often find it hard to trust in God. I find it hard to trust in God especially because my life seems to be in constant change, constant transition. Though in my mind I know that I am just 'passing through here' on my way to my heavenly dwelling place, I have found my soul crying out for the last several months, "I just wanna go home!" I cried that from my bed in Jarabacoa; again the cry came while on my bed in Cambria. Just this morning, in yet another bed in another location, I heard my heart crying, "I wanna go home."
A couple of years ago, I was making a visionary collage as I prayed about my next steps in life. As I flipped through one magazine, these words just jumped off the page at me, "Be a world traveler. Be a homebody. Be both at once." These words were used as a catch phrase for some product or place that I can no longer remember, but as I quickly cut them out, I remember thinking, 'yep-- that is totally me.' I have lived my entire life trying to reconcile these two realities-- I want to settle, to plant deep roots, but once I am in a place too long, I get itchy to travel to distant lands, to taste new adventures. I think I live in a perpetual state of homesickness. I am thankful for the words of comfort and promise in Psalm 84. God knows that as we 'just pass through here' keeping our hearts set on His promise of eternal rest, that there will be tears of longing, tears of sacrifice. The beauty is not just that He understands, but that He turns these times of stress and sorrow and longing into pools that refresh in the wilderness. He promises strength for the journey. He promises in another psalm that 'those who sow in tears will reap in joy, bringing their sheaves with them'.
Joy and strength await all pilgrims, all travelers, all who trust in the Lord God.