The Journey to Home.

I know what it feels like.

Just before dawn this morning, after a very short night with little sleep, I took my sweet friend Emma to the airport for her return flight to Colorado and the family she loves dearly. Her eyes were sparkling with joy as she checked her bag and walked toward the security line. She was going home.

Yesterday, those same eyes were sparkling with tears. As we rode the escalator down to the baggage claim area at Austin Bergstrom, there were cheers from waiting family and friends for the rest of our team. “We’re proud of you!” “We missed you so much!” The voices raised like a symphony.

But the orchestra wasn’t full.

Though every team member hugged Emma, though there was joy in the friendships made - there were voices she missed. Her journey wasn’t complete. She was not home yet.

I returned home and drifted off to sleep, thinking about Guatemala and Emma and the past week. And I dreamt. In that dream, I could hear my mom in the kitchen, making biscuits and gravy (I’ve written a chapter about this comfort food in my “may-never-be-finished” book). Her love was evident as she fluffed the sheets and stroked my forehead. Her voice calmed my soul.

Opening my eyes, for the briefest of moments, I thought I could hear her.

I am blessed to belong to a loving husband, a precious son and beautiful daughter-in-love, and God-crafted family. Yet, in the stillness of that dream, my heart ached to feel the touch of a mom who loved me beyond measure.

We all want to feel “home,” no matter who we are - a 16-year old from Colorado who sees her future ministering to the discarded in Latin America, a 50-year old who finds joy in helping others live transformational lives, one of the 148 million orphans in the world, the 30,000 kids in the Texas foster care system, or the vagabonds I pass every day on my way to more important things in my life.

Yes, I believe fully the journey to “home” continues throughout this life, and I pray whoever reads this has the sweet, humbling confidence of eternity with God All-Mighty. But I believe family isn’t something just to be experienced in Heaven. We are to minister to widows and orphans, we are to care for those passing through, we are to entertain strangers.

We are supposed to love beyond measure. We are to be the orchestra that says “welcome home.”

The Wonder of Being Truly Alive.

The sun is shining as it rises over the hills and volcanoes. The birds are singing a symphony. The morning is fresh and new, full of sparkling mercy, grace and love - just waiting to be shared and experienced. I wish I could bottle this moment, for it is a perfect reminder of the wonder of our God.

We leave Eagle's Nest today to return to Guatemala City, where we will rest and prepare for our journey home. If all goes well, we will stop in Antigua to see the beautiful monasteries and cobblestone streets of the artisan community. And I will hunger to see the wrinkled faces and hold the withered hands of the elderly at Cabecitas de Algodor (the Little House of Cottontops). They, like the orphans and the poor here, have been discarded. But unlike the children who have found love on top of the mountain at Eagle's Nest, they wait for any familiar face to come. And no one comes. I will see them in October, hold them and call them Abuelita and Abuelo. I, too, know what it feels like to be alone. And I know what it feels like to be embraced by new family.

While here, we've painted classrooms, built a little library, built a bus stop, painted playground equipment, taught swimming lessons, cut hair, played with orphans, laughed with the poor, cleaned and straightened and breathed in every moment. And I've got that feeling that haunts me at the end of every journey like this - the "just one more moment, please" ache. I've come to savor it, embrace it, cherish it. For it reminds me I'm truly alive.

A story was shared with us yesterday. I thought you might like it. It's from Mike Yaconelli, founder of Youth Specialties. He passed away in 2004, but his ministry and legacy live on. I pray the wonder never ends.

It was one of those snowfalls you never forget. Millions of white flakes filled the air, quieting the earth and swallowing the sounds. The resulting silence was thick with a texture you could feel. My nephew stood in the living room at the opening to our deck, a stranger to snow. his two years of life about to be altered irrevocably. His eyes were blank, unaware; his body clueless; his mind about to be overloaded with the electricity of discovery. In the dark, Mother had maneuvered herself onto the deck’s two feet of snow to capture the event on video. Dad manned the sliding door, which had been unlatched for quick opening into the darkness. Uncle’s hands were poised on the switch to light the deck. And Aunt was ready to lift her nephew into the mysterious new world of twinkling ice and frozen softness.

The moment arrived.

In a perfectly timed instant the deck lights went on, the camera started recording, the sliding door swept open, and a two-year old was transported from the world he knew to a world he had never seen.

Wonder filled the air.

His eyes stretched wide with astonishment, as though the only way to apprehend what he was seeing was for his eyes to become big enough to contain it all. He stood motionless, paralyzed. It was too much for a two-year-old, too much for an any-year-old (too often, when a person gets older, the person’s “too-much detector” malfunctions, corroded by busyness and technology). He twitched and jerked each time a snowflake landed on his face, feeling it tingle as it was transformed from hostile cold to friendly warmth, caressing his face with tiny droplets of water. Just behind his large eyes you could see sparks flying from the crosscurrents of millions of electric stimuli overwhelming the circuit breakers of his previously small world. His mind was a confusion of strange, conflicting realities: white, cold, floating, flying, tingling, electric, landing, touching, sparkling, melting - causing an overload so great, so overwhelming, he fell backward - a slow-motion landing in the billowy whiteness, the snow tenderly embracing him. He had given up trying to understand snow and had given in to experiencing snow.

It was a moment of wonder.

The more I think about it, it was a moment of dangerous wonder. My nephew’s awe and wonder caused him to surrender to the snow by falling into it. For a few magical seconds, the danger of snow had given way to the wonder of snow. For a brief moment my nephew came face-to-face with life at its fullest. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, to be afraid or happy. My nephew experienced what it must be have been like that first moment in Eden when Adam and Eve’s eyes could not comprehend the staggering beauty of God’s new creation. He experienced what it must have been like when the scales fell from the blind man’s eyes and the explosion of color and shapes bombarded his mind for the first time; when the leper felt a surge of electricity through his body, his dead and rotting skin suddenly transformed into the fresh skin of a baby; when the bitter, hopeless prostitute looked up fully expecting judgment and death and instead heard the words of forgiveness and life.

What moments? What holy moments! To be in the presence of God, frightened and amazed at the same time! To feel as if you are in the presence of Life itself, yet with your soul shaking in both fear and gratitude.

I want a lifetime of holy moments. Every day I want to be in the dangerous proximity to Jesus. I long for a life that explodes with meaning and is filled with adventure, wonder, risk, and danger. I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous. I want to be with Jesus, not knowing whether to cry or laugh.

James

The following is an exerpt from an email conversation I had with a wonderful person who has been an encouragement as I wage war with the voices that whisper "inadequate" and "unwanted."

I do know what my Father says about who I am in Him. But in the thick of battle, that precious Voice can certainly be drowned out by the noise.

James 1 has become so fresh to me in all this - the entire chapter. I've read it before in pieces, but never in the whole. And the words resonate beautifully. I'm using the Philips translation here - another one of my favorites for studying the New Testament:

James, servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, sends greetings to the twelve dispersed tribes.When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realise that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence. And if, in the process, any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem he has only to ask God - who gives generously to all men without making them feel foolish or guilty - and he may be quite sure that the necessary wisdom will be given him. But he must ask in sincere faith without secret doubts as to whether he really wants God's help or not. The man who trusts God, but with inward reservations, is like a wave of the sea, carried forward by the wind one moment and driven back the next. That sort of man cannot hope to receive anything from God, and the life of a man of divided loyalty will reveal instability at every turn. The brother who is poor may be glad because God has called him to the true riches. The rich may be glad that God has shown him his spiritual poverty. For the rich man, as such, will wither away as surely as summer flowers. One day the sunrise brings a scorching wind; the grass withers at once and so do all the flowers - all that lovely sight is destroyed. Just as surely will the rich man and all his extravagant ways fall into the blight of decay. The man who patiently endures the temptations and trials that come to him is the truly happy man. For once his testing is complete he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to all who love him. A man must not say when he is tempted, "God is tempting me." For God has no dealings with evil, and does not himself tempt anyone. No, a man's temptation is due to the pull of his own inward desires, which can be enormously attractive. His own desire takes hold of him, and that produces sin. And sin in the long run means death - make no mistake about that, brothers of mine! But every good endowment that we possess and every complete gift that we have received must come from above, from the Father of all lights, with whom there is never the slightest variation or shadow of inconsistency. By his own wish he made us his own sons through the Word of truth that we might be, so to speak, the first specimens of his new creation.In view of what he has made us then, dear brothers, let every man be quick to listen but slow to use his tongue, and slow to lose his temper. For man's temper is never the means of achieving God's true goodness.Have done, then, with impurity and every other evil which touches the lives of others, and humbly accept the message that God has sown in your hearts, and which can save your souls. Don't I beg you, only hear the message, but put it into practice; otherwise you are merely deluding yourselves. The man who simply hears and does nothing about it is like a man catching the reflection of his own face in a mirror. He sees himself, it is true, but he goes on with whatever he was doing without the slightest recollection of what sort of person he saw in the mirror. But the man who looks into the perfect mirror of God's law, the law of liberty (or freedom), and makes a habit of so doing, is not the man who sees and forgets. He puts that law into practice and he wins true happiness. If anyone appears to be "religious" but cannot control his tongue, he deceives himself and we may be sure that his religion is useless. Religion that is pure and genuine in the sight of God the Father will show itself by such things as visiting orphans and widows in their distress and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world.

I want to fully understand what it means to embrace trials and temptations as "friends," to lean in so fully to the Lord that I have complete confidence and boldness to ask anything, knowing He will answer. I want to don’t want my tongue to wag with meaningless words that are not backed up by actions. I want to rejoice in my spiritual poverty, and want to fully understand the riches bestowed on those who seem forgotten or cast aside. One thing I am thankful of in the midst of all this is that I serve a Lord who isn't finished with me yet - and who delights in refining and perfecting me.