going home

I am sitting next to a pond with only my iPhone in hand. But my mind is so very full of thoughts. I want...no, I need to write them. So here goes...my first post from my iPhone.

I am just wrapping up spring break this week. It has been a beautiful week...so very beautiful. It touched something very deep in me and I've been walking around this pond trying to figure out what that was.

But I know what it was. My holes were filled this week. Somehow, the gaping, aching longings that I've been trying to learn how to live with...somehow, this week, they were filled.

I guess that's what happens when you go home. I would always say nj is my home...and I happen to be sitting in that great state now. So it wasn't the state. No, it was that my soul felt at home this week. Pressures lifted, my soul felt free to rest. And what a beautiful rest it was. And the spaces in me that feel gaping open...they were filled. Quality time with mom, dad, best friend. Time to laugh, cry, be loud, be quiet, time to rest and time to be, knowing that I am not alone. It was beautiful. I can only think that it reminded my heart of what is to come...when my heart will really be home and my soul will really sing.

I had the privilege of hearing a friend of mine preach this morning. He spoke of the hope of the resurrection, that the resurrection speaks to me now of the hope that one day, I and everything in this world will be as it was meant to be. We will live in and we will know fullness. We will see the Lord. We will walk with him with nothing in our way. He'll be as real to us as we are to each other. But my friend also said that the hope of the resurrection touches us today. As I sit next to this pond painstakingly typing away on my small iPhone, I remember that I am a new person, that the resurrected Bethany is continuing to live and take shape even now. That there is hope that I will continue to grow, continue to be changed, continue to be renewed and remade because Jesus went to the cross and rose from the grave. Because he is alive, so am I.

These truths are spiritual, understood by experience, it seems. Too huge for me to try to explain or put words to.  But somehow my heart knows. I know that even in the moments when resurrection seems far away, it's not.  He came so that we might be liberated, transformed new people even now. Praise His name.  What an amazing God who would do this for His people.

My next post might sound a bit more sophisticated.  I've found that it's hard to sound sophisticated when you keep pushing the wrong button on your phone. =) It takes me 5x longer just to type one word!  So this one will just sound real, I suppose.