Back in 1999 we moved to Montgomery, Alabama for what would be my last Air Force assignment. It was something like my 17th Air Force move.
For both of our sons, it meant attending their tenth school. Sean was a sophomore and went to the academic magnet school downtown. Patrick was a senior and went to St. James, a private college prep school.
At Patrick’s graduation, the valedictorian told how the “St. James family” had helped her during the most difficult time in her life. And what was that? It was when her family had moved across town when she was in kindergarten.
Some kids have it rough, I guess.
Jana and I grew up anchored in our hometown of Ashland, Kentucky. Our families never moved. We’re still friends with folks we went to kindergarten with.
But later, when Sean finished seminary and they asked him to list his hometown in the graduation program, he didn’t know what to say. He’d been born in Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, but our home at the time was in Northern Virginia. Sean ended up listing Ashland, Kentucky, though he’d only visited there.
We are creatures of place.
But we always feel a bit out of place.
The Bible says the reason is that, at the Fall, the first humans were cast out of their first and truest home. Good luck finding a better explanation for why we long for home, but can never seem to find it. There isn’t one.
But in one of the most beloved passages in Scripture, Jesus assures us that he’s prepared a place for us, a really nice place, and he’s come to take us there.
He says we’re not lost. We know the way home.
When we’re at home in him, we won’t think of moving again.
Intersection 