I go to prepare a place for you. —John 14:2 (kjv)
"I’m heading home," David, my husband, says into the phone, before I even have a chance to say hello. Home. He’s worked hard all day, and the class he teaches didn’t end until 9:00 p.m., so when he says the word, it sounds precious.
Even as a child, I sensed the value of home and knew I was lucky because I lived in a happy one. All of my life, I’ve anguished for those who weren’t so fortunate: Those who, by the luck of the draw, have never had a home or have, through a reversal of fortunes, lost the one they had.
Our family has always had a passion for working to secure homes for those people. We’ve provided homes for refugees and for those in our city with marginal incomes. In Zimbabwe, with the help of many others, we’ve managed to provide homes for a fair number of AIDS orphans. Yet anything we can hope to do is like a grain of sand on a vast beach. There are so many people who will never have a home like we do.
But then I remember a larger truth. In a way, we are all headed home, to a spot beyond anything we know now. Over and over, the Bible promises that such a place exists! So, surely, God has already planned a permanent home for each of His children, and most especially for those who, in this life, have done without.
