welcome home

So today when I passed through customs in New York, the officer looked at my passport, smiled, and said, "Welcome home." I had a very strange reaction to it because I had such a wonderful time in Egypt, I didn't want to leave. I was almost offered a teaching job in Egypt and I gladly would have stayed. I liked just about everything about Egypt and I was very, very sad to go home. Yet somehow, when the officer handed me my passport with the pleasant greeting of "Welcome home," those two beautiful words had such a nice calming sound to them. It is a nice feeling to know you're back in your country with everything familiar around you, where you feel you belong.

It reminds me of how much I love this world we live in - this planet, with all of its beauty and wonder and life. Yet I can picture Jesus standing at the "Customs and Border Control" entrance to heaven, looking down at the Book of Life. I see him looking up and smiling at me with his eyes and I hear his voice say, "Welcome home." I wonder if it will feel the same way - the feeling of no matter how amazing it was where you've been, this is where you belong.

So now that I've been awake for 25 hours (not counting the hour I slept on the plane from New York to Richmond when I didn't even know the plane took off! I'm not kidding...I fell asleep when we boarded the plane and woke up when we were at the gate in Richmond. Weird.), I'm going to take a shower and go to bed.

Welcome home.