Wednesday, July 9, 2008

OUR TRUE HOME

In the 1980's,12 year-old Amy Alden of Newfoundland, Canada, found a clutch of 16 goslings whose mother goose had died. She brought them home, fed them and quickly they grew and became family pets on her front porch. But Amy wanted them to succeed in the wild, for she knew if they depended only on her, they would never learn to live on their own.

So Amy and her father, a pilot, build an ultralight aircraft shaped like a huge goose in flight. Her Dad taught her to fly it and somehow coaxed the young geese to follow it. Amy then flew the craft more than two thousand miles south until they came to the Atlantic wetlands where the Canadian geese wintered. Amy and her father left them there, confident they would adapt to the wild. But surprise of surprises, the following summer, all 16 geese returned home to Amy's front porch.

Where is your home? Carol and I returned after three weeks on the road, glad to sleep in our own bed and sit in our favorite chairs again. During our trip, we met many "fulltimers," people whose home is on wheels, their motor coach or trailer, and we wondered how it felt not to have that special place where we could return, the place we call home. In Bozeman we worshipped two Sundays at First Lutheran, welcomed by fellow Lutherans as we sang hymns and liturgy from our familiar hymnal, just like at home.

Where is your permanent, your eternal home? In the 19th Century, composer Anton Dvorzak wrote his "New World Symphony" after visiting America, and incorporated into it the haunting spiritual, "Going Home," whose gentle melody has accompanied many a person to the cemetery. Most Christians long for their eternal home with the Lord, and thanks be to God that He provides a blessed home to all who trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

I'm but a stranger here - Heaven is my home!

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