home for the holidays

Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays,
For no matter how far away you roam –
When you long for the sunshine of a friendly gaze,
For the holidays – you can’t beat home, sweet home!

“I’m looking forward to getting home,” my husband sighed as he stretched in the driver’s seat.

I couldn’t help but agree with a tired but happy, “Me, too.”

We’d just been to visit my family. Back to where I used to call home.

But I’d noticed it even more than usual this time: as much as I love my family, as much as we enjoy visiting them, it doesn’t feel as much like home any more.

It made me think of my Heavenly Home. And how the older we get, the more we long for Heaven; the closer we grow to Him, the less this world feels like home.

As sweet as the memories are we’re making, as young as we feel at times, it’s the pains and the struggles, the growing older and the losing loved ones, that reminds us of a better time to come.

Yes, we’ll be home for Christmas this year. But next year—maybe next year?—we’ll get to be with all our family, truly at Home.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.