Home is Where the Heart Is

Last weekend, I went home.  Not home as in North Carolina where I was born,  but home as in a place where I once lived and loved and laughed and lingered.  A place that I still  long for.   The older I get, the more I realize how important the people who have been intertwined into the tapestry of my story here on earth have enriched my life.  How is it that when you are sitting across the table with a friend, coffee in hand, you can appreciate the moment.....but it is only years later that the memory gets richer and fuller with meaning,  even as the years and miles wedge an unsolicited distance?

 I think home is really people more than a place... My sister told me today that she believes that the lack of respect we are seeing in our country today is due to the absence of community.  There is a new place of isolation.  The internet is a wonderful tool, (and I love that I can keep in touch with you!) but it becomes a crisis when our families sit under the same roof with their individual devices and barely look up, much less enter a conversation, or heaven forbid, have dinner together...at a table!  And what happened to family visits in each others homes until wee hours of the morning....and sometimes family sleepovers!  People in this day and age might not even be able to grasp such a thought or they might even think that's weird!  There are some things I would do differently if I were to go back to those years we raised our kids together in Lynn, Indiana, but there is a lot that I would do exactly the same way.  We did have community!!!

For almost two decades, in the prime of our lives, we journeyed life side by side.  We were shoulder to shoulder in the trenches.  We learned together how to be mothers.  We shared our homes, our recipes, our philosophies and our children.  Mostly our lives were connected because we were following Jesus and we shared church.  And there is just something indescribable about going to church together!  Serving...sharing our gifts...singing...praying...eating...and worshipping together--that's just about as good as it gets in this life!

There was so much I wanted to say to you (obviously that wasn't meant to be since I woke up with laryngitis!) and so much I wanted to hear from you.  I didn't have enough time with any of you!!!!
I had so many questions to ask and too little time to do it!  But it was wonderful to see your face, to hear bits and pieces of of your lives, and just to hug you one more time!

Let me just say what I wanted to say, in case I didn't tell you or you couldn't hear me...Thank you for being my friend.  Thank you for enriching my life.  Thank you for sharing joy and sorrow with me.  Thank you for all the times we laughed.....and cried.  Thank you for the prayers.  Thank you for your influence on my children.  Thank you for being my community when I was far from my family and when I needed support and encouragement.  You were there for me.....in so many ways.  Your life has blessed me so much.  I love the memories we share.  I love the stories our children tell.  Because of you I love those corn and bean fields and I love how you can see the sky for miles.  I love your sunrises and sunsets.....but mostly I love the people God gave me in those special years as my babies grew up to be adults.  You are forever in my heart!