No Place Like Home

I enjoy traveling, especially when someone else (i.e., my work) is footing the bill for it. Flying is usually fun, when I'm not stuck on a cramped plane seated next to a colicky infant or sitting on the tarmac while we're the 15th in line for takeoff on an already delayed flight. (Thankfully, neither of those things happened on any of my flights this week.) It's fun to stay in a hotel and know that I don't have to make my own bed, that my towels will be replenished daily and that I'm not the one who has to scrub the toilet.

But whether I'm on the road for work (as I was this week) or I'm on vacation, after a few days I'm READY to come home. Coming home is a great feeling. I get to sleep in my own bed. I'm in a familiar city again. Best of all, I get to reconnect with my family, my boyfriend, my friends, and my beloved dog. It's a great feeling to know that the people you're so happy to reunite with are just as happy to see you.

Of course, there's a bit of an adjustment period whenever I return from a trip. I have to immediately unpack--I can't stand to let a pile of clothes or a suitcase just sit there for days on end like some people can. There are a few mountains of laundry to tackle. There's mail and e-mail to sort through. And there are news and blogs to catch up on. It usually takes a couple of days before I feel like I'm back in the loop.

As wonderful as coming home from a trip usually feels, I wonder how much more wonderful our homecoming in Heaven will be. THAT is our true home. In essence, for our entire mortal lives we are simply travelers on this earth ("This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing thru..."). Imagine the comfort of returning home to sleep in your own bed, of reconnecting with your loved ones, and multiply that by a gazillion. Perhaps that's the joy we'll experience on entering Heaven, that overwhelming sense of truly coming home. That's got to be one of the best feelings.

Even better, we won't have a mountain of laundry to come home to!