‘Sister Shirley, bring warm clothes and long boots, it is cold in Romania’ read Dora’s text.
‘It is cold in Romania’. How those words burned into my heart. I thought of the emptiness, the sadness, the finality of separation surrounding those I love. The water of ‘time’ is flowing fast and the waters continue to rise. I sense the need to return home. There is a longing in my heart to ‘spend a morning’; ‘share an evening’; offer a few moments of my time to listen, trying to understand the road of towering mountains, unanswered questions many walk just now.
Distance, change of climate, unfamiliar surroundings, my favourite chair, yet I do not feel a stranger, I have One who walks beside me, who knows my heart and whose promises are my ‘silent companion’. This ‘abiding place’ is home to me. An abiding peace, an abiding faith, fills my heart as I remember that ‘here we have no abiding place’. We are on a journey with the One who never changes and who will abide with us wherever we are. Home is a place of security, filled with the love of a father, mother, husband, wife, the joy of brothers, sisters, yet as I plan my visits, I realise there will be an empty chair, a silence in a room once filled with joy. ‘Change and decay in all around I see, O Thou who changes not, abide with me’. The freshness of those words whisper ‘no need to fear’ because I know that wherever I am I must be ‘ALL’ there (Jim Elliot). ‘In my father’s house are many mansions’, a ‘Home’ a place of dwelling, prepared and waiting – Eternity! Read more