Coming home

I am coming back from vacation. Home actually. Here in my Portland living room with the fireplace going and cat by my side, having just finished watching our favorite TV show "24" that we missed while gone. But I am still at the beach in my heart. My skin still feels warm (could be the sun rash perhaps) and I can almost feel the sand between my toes. My feet still hurt a little from walking around barefoot all week. The waves are continuing to crash in my ears if I close my eyes. Everything is contradictory in my mind as I process how to acclimate back to normal home life (as you will soon see). Thank God for pictures. For memories. And for an Aunt & Uncle that gave us their condo for a week.

Something struck me about relationship and belief in God while there - on the beach with my family. It took a few days, almost a week actually to notice it. It wasn't really until the end was near and we only had a day or two left that it dawned on me. I hadn't thought of anyone I knew the whole time we were there. Didn't miss anyone. Never prayed or acknowledged God at all. On the first day we got there I did - some thanks and awe. And then....poof. I turned into a sun worshipping lizard who thought little about anything important and only about what tasty Mexican food we would eat next or how wonderful it felt to be alive. Which are good things. It's good to unwind and disengage. I believe we needed it and am thankful for it.

It started a couple days before we were to leave, I saw a woman by the pool that reminded me of my mom. And a chill came over me and my heart burned. I missed her. I wanted to hear her voice. Weird. I realized I hadn't thought about her or any of the people I love outside my husband and son in a week. Which I suppose is fine for one should be content and at peace with your immediate family. But that got me thinking about God and I realized I hadn't talked to Him at all. Didn't miss Him even. Nor for that matter had any real need for God. Out there amongst the sun and waves and poolside 80's music where Whitney Houston sings about love and happy things, and where my family is happy, safe, warm and in my arms - I wondered if I had no need of God. Does the pampered easy life take the need for God away?

As the reality came upon me that we were about to be flown far away from here and maybe never to return, I turned back to God desperately. The last 2 days words of thankfulness and awe and splendor came from my lips and heart. "On my knees in fascination" so Sam Phillips sings. I started praying for the people we would come home to and glad to have them in my life. And so so grateful for the healing time it was to rest. To play. To be. To NOT think of deep things. To be alive on this beautiful earth.

On that last day - I think now it was the sweetest. Well rested and disengaged from the world, I was now coming back to Love in all the definitions of the word. I began to savor everything and pray over and over that I would remember this moment, the air, the breeze on my face, the sound of the waves, the sand on my feet, my sons warm beachy hand in mine. The incredible view, the whales surfacing in the water and the rays jumping, and the sunset - each night changing it's color and feel. My friend Jessica's face whom we got to vacation with and I haven't seen in years. And my husband walking toward me on the beach tanned with his Mexican hat.

I wonder what heaven will be like. To have all these things, these comforts & beauties - and to have God. Right there walking with me. I am very much looking forward to it. In the meantime, it is good to be home and to have need of God again. I wonder now that that place was a taste of heaven. Rather than a place devoid of God - it seems He was present and full in all the beauty of life all around. Seemingly my words, prayers and devotions could not have been any use there at all. Sometimes, a few times in life, we get the opportunity to just take it all in. Giant heaping spoonfuls. Whether or not I have need for God is irrelevant. Maybe He just had a need for me.

Proverbs 14:30
"A heart at peace gives life to the body..."

Acts 2:26
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live in hope,

1 John 3:19
This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence