My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
Rumi
I KNOW THAT the reason I was able to keep going after the loss of my mother was that my faith had taught me I would see her again. My faith told me, Yes, this hurts. Yes, life is hard. But take heart. This is not the end. Jesus rose after three days, and our spirits, too, are immortal. There is a place waiting for you. It is filled with God and your loved ones. All tears will be dried. All hurts will be healed. It is paradise, and it is forever.
I’m not sure where I would be if I didn’t have that hope as a guiding force in my life.
I found a Welsh word the other day that I had never come across before: hiraeth. It is defined as a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home that maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.
Of course I responded to that word as a girl whose childhood essentially ended at age ten when her mother’s bright light was taken from this world. I do feel as if I’ve carried a longing for that home ever since . . . the home that was filled with laughter and joy and a mother’s love.
But I also respond to the part of the definition that speaks of a home that maybe never was. Because this world is filled with longing. None of us have perfect lives. I can attest that all the money and success in the world doesn’t fill our hearts. There is a void in each of us that I believe can only be filled by God and will only be fully healed when we reach heaven.
For all the gifts I’ve been given, I still long. I long for my mom and dad. I long for Reilly to meet her grandparents. I long to share stories with my parents of where life has taken me.
I long to feel that completeness of being with all of my loved ones together.
And I know I will have that in heaven. That not only will I be able to walk with my mom and dad again but one day, I hope many years after I’ve arrived, I will see my own baby girl walk through those gates. And I will embrace her. And then I will pull her over to my mother and my father. And they will see their beautiful granddaughter. And we will hug and laugh and cry at the good and the bad and the love and the joy. And the grace that allowed us to finally be together, forever.
Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.
HELEN KELLER
Billy Graham famously said, “My home is in heaven. I’m just passing through this world.” Sometimes we search so hard to find home. We think we will find it in the perfect job or perfect relationship, or maybe if we build just the right house or move to the right neighborhood, everything will fall into place. But true home is within us. True home is in God. We’re like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz: she thinks she needs certain things to make her whole and get her back home. She thinks she needs courage and heart and a brain. She thinks that if she could just pull back the curtain and find Oz, all would be well. But when she gets back home, she realizes that what she truly needs has been with her all along.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T. S. ELIOT
I hope that in this book you have begun to see the beauty in your journey. How it may have twisted and turned, and had ups and downs, but ultimately that you were never alone on the Yellow Brick Road. That even in the dark forest, God was preparing you. That even as you danced in Munchkinland, it was time to say thank you. That even though when you arrive back home and nothing has changed on the outside, you’ll see that you’ve been changed on the inside. And that is all that matters. When we awaken fully to God, it’s as if we finally remember that we are not merely caterpillars but that we are, in fact, beautiful butterflies with wings to fly.
Human spiritual longing is, finally, the humility of realizing that we have forgotten who we are. . . . There can be times in the process of seeking that we are reassured that however much we are searching, we are at some level even more devoutly being searched for. There may even be times when we are reassured that the frenzy of searching is not really needed, that in fact we have already been found. But the longing will persist, and so will the seeking, and unless we are unusually fortunate we shall search in a multitude of blind alleys.
GERALD MAY