Not Home Yet

Three days and counting.  I can’t believe that there are only three days left on my trip to London.  It seems only a couple of weeks ago that I was settling in and getting my feet wet with the new culture and new place that I found myself. The time that I have had here has been absolutely amazing and I won’t know the full effect that it has had on my life until a much later time.  I have begun to say my goodbyes and collect contact information from my summer friends.  I have unpacked my bags only to repack them and think how I am going to creative enough to bring everything home that I have collected.  I am ready to go.  I wish that I could stay just because there are so many things that I know I haven’t done and wish I could do, and there are still so many people that I want to know better and continue to learn from.  But, I knew ten weeks ago when I left for this trip that my time was limited and that at the end of it I wanted to have no regrets, and I don’t. I think that I have lived these last ten weeks to the fullest and have stories and experiences that will last a life time through the impact that they had on my life. But I am longing to go home.  I am imagining the looks on my family’s faces when I run through the airport, through customs and see them standing there with open arms and big smiles.  I want to be in that place of complete and total love and joy.  I want to go home.  I actually have wanted to be home all summer.  Some where in the back of my mind, even in the midst of the awesome things I have had the chance to do, I have been wanting to go home.  I knew that the time wasn’t right and that I still had things to do in this foreign place, but I also knew where my home was.  I didn’t want to come here and become English.   I wanted to be an Ellwood from Texas in England.  Having my identity grounded and my home sure made getting through some of the tougher times here easier.  I knew that no matter what happened I would be loved by my family.  I knew that if I came over here and was not successful, even though I tried really hard, that I could still e-mail my parents and they would respond with encouragement to keep trying and that they were proud of me.   My pastor, Andrew Murray, asked me today if I could board a plane today, would I? It made me stop and think for a moment.  I really do want to be home, but I still have time left here, I need to make the most of it.  I would love to be home tonight and not three days from now, but there is a reason that I am staying a couple of days more.  I have this time for a reason.  I am glad I know when I am going home, so I can to make the most of the time that I have left.  But in another way, I don’t know when I am going home.  I don’t know how much time I have left.  God could call me to my heavenly home at any moment, would I be ready to go?  I too wrestle with my longing for my eternal place of love and joy and the life that I cling to here on this earth.  Steven Curtis Chapman sings a song called Not Home Yet, and in the bridge of the song he says, “I know there’ll be a moment, I know there’ll be a place, where we will see our Savior and fall in His embrace. So let us not grow weary, or to content to stay, for we are not Home yet.”   In my deepest heart of heats I am longing to go home.  When we realize that our lives are not our own and that we are not in control of our own destiny, there is a new sense freedom. But until the day that we go Home, we have time here for a reason.  We don’t know how much, each day is a blessing for us to use to its fullest.  "So let us not grow weary or to content to stay, for we are Not Home Yet."