1 August, Closing Thoughts

I've been gone a mere two months, but I am ready for home. I want to unpack my bag, stretch out my legs, open fresh drawers and fill them with crisp, clean clothes, folded by my mother. It's hot, hot summer now, and I anticipate the cooling fall, sweaters and studies, brisk nights outside under the waning sun. I long for hot chocolate chip cookies and a deep glass of milk, to sit and tell stories with my family in our living room.

I would admit that these longings come from a weak traveler's heart, but I think that any wanderer who has wandered at our pace across the globe would discover the same homesick feelings. In most respects, America is a better place to live than the rest of the world--better than Nepal and Israel, and yes, even Italy. From overseas, America is idyllic. The pleasures of life found in Nepal are mere shadows of the richness of America. I was raised in the land of treasures; if I'd been raised elsewhere I wouldn't know what I was missing.

We've been in lands of dirty water, bus wrecks, and leeches. We've left countries consumed in wars, ravaged by bombs, and shaken by deadly rockslides. We've passed hundreds of beggars and seen the faces of thousands of people needy for a Savior. Tragedies and misfortunes fill the streets of this world. My eyes have been opened to that; to shut them again when I return would be a dishonest deed.

If we died in this far-off land, would our longings for home die with us? If I died with this pack on my shoulders, having never tasted sweet home again, would I regret for a moment taking this journey? Would my love for family and friends vanish with me into the dust? Many, if they were honest about their religion, would have to say yes; all that matters for them is life here on earth.

But this earth is not our home. Hebrews says that Abraham and the saints died in faith "not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth." Though this is the picture of Christians throughout the Bible, I think many Christians today are afraid of it. We're afraid to let this world go.

We are God's children. Our homeland is heaven. If I were to die today, I would die happy. I'd die happy because my hopes do not rest in this world--in my travels or family or home or future. My hopes rest in the promises of Christ, the promises of a new heaven and a new earth--life with God.

C.S. Lewis called this world the shadowlands. The things which I long for back home are mere shadows of the things which I long for in heaven. Now, I see them from afar, making out dim shapes on the horizon. One day, as Paul says, I shall seem them in full, and run after them, further up and further in, without turning back. For, says, Hebrews, "If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city." Amen.

Drew