Longing for Home

This is Buddy the Dalmation (hi Buddy!). Yes, he's blurry, but this is the side of Buddy I see more and more when he visits the kennel.

Buddy wants to go home.

While it's fairly normal for dogs to go to the door a couple times when they are away from home, Buddy's persistence is new. He's been coming here for years and always done quite well at the kennel.

Then this Summer, Buddy got beat up by some mean dogs in his neighborhood. Buddy is completely docile and nice, so when I heard he was seriously injured by some strays who ambushed him in his own yard, it was extremely distressing. As a result, Buddy is afraid of other dogs and is uncomfortable when he's at the kennel. He wants to be home, with his people, away from the unfamiliar dogs who he is no longer interested in getting to know.

Being away from home is hard. "Home" might look different for every person, but the bottom line is home is where you feel safe and are loved. If we get "beat up" by coworkers, friends, neighbors, the check out woman with the bad attitude, we get worn out. We don't really want to get to know other people to see if they are trustworthy or not. We just want to be home.

The heart of God is the ultimate safe place for us. There, we are fully and perfectly loved. But we aren't home yet. We need to be away from that true comfort and spend time with "other dogs" as we live our lives.

The last two days, I enjoyed being snowed in and not going anywhere. This morning, however, I realized that when I don't go anywhere or interact with other people, I miss something very important - I miss how God is working in and through other people. That's a glimpse of Home. And I don't want to miss that.