Home

              Where do you call home?
            I've lived in many different places since graduating from Concordia forty years ago, most of them apartments. Most of the places I've lived, I've always considered temporary and never really considered home. With the exception of one place, I have always rented and the places I have lived have not belonged to me.
            In 1978 my husband purchased the house in Oak Park that would later become my home for 21 years. When he purchased the home, we did not know one another & would not meet for another six years.
            I spent seven years before we married as a visitor to this house. There were many good memories of times spent there. Times spent as a friend, "girlfriend" and later as fiance. But none of these held the security I was given in 1991. This changed the day we were married. This is the day that house in Oak Park became my home. 
            This is the day it became my security. I did nothing to earn this home with my husband. It became my home purely out of his love for me. I signed my name - I paid nothing for this home.
            He did not realize when he first purchased the home but he was slowly building a life for the two of us through the plans the LORD was putting into place. This home would become my own as I grew to know the man who would one day become my husband.
            The home we built together was one where we both felt secure. This was a sanctuary. It was more than the building that we lived in. It was filled with memories and love. When my husband of 21 years passed away, it was still a home. This home ceased to be three months later when a fire destroyed it. The memories were not destroyed. The love that we shared were not destroyed. This had been my earthly home and while I have a place I now have lived in for the past five and a half years, it has never become my home.
            I now rent - I have place where I live but it is not the home I shared with Gerry. It has memories from our home, but not the memories from our time together.
            Our life in Christ is so much better. Here on earth we are "renters". We are not owners of the home the place the LORD has prepared for us. He has been preparing this place in heaven for us since before we were born, since before we knew Him.
            Before Jesus left this earth, He told his disciples that in His Father's house there were many rooms and that He was going to prepare a place for us. He would come back and take us there. (John 14:2-4). He said this was the truth. This is our home, this is where we belong. Our place in Heaven is where we belong. Jesus bought and paid for our place by His death on the cross and His resurrection. Jesus knew what he was doing when He chose to give up his life for us so that we could live eternally with Him in Heaven.
            The home we have in Heaven can't be destroyed!
            While I have been separated from my husband and I do have the hope of seeing him in Heaven, I have the assurance that nothing can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:31-39)
            We pay nothing for our home in heaven! It has been bought and paid for by Jesus. We don't even have to sign our name. - Ephesians 2:8-9 & John 3:16