We had been out of town and with all the logistics of drop off and pick up, Isabella had been gone from home for a little more than a week.
It was a momentous occasion, to say the least.
She got out of the car, we came out of the front door, she saw us, we grinned ear to ear and called out her name, she screamed excitedly, and she started running as fast as she could to grab and hug and kiss us. In a torrent of information over the next several hours, she wanted to tell us about everything she had seen and done while we were gone, but mostly she just wanted to hold us and tell us she missed us.
Yesterday's 'homecoming' left a permanent impression on my mind.
How excited one person can be to see another. How eager one person can be to share everything that has happened since the last time they saw someone.
It's something I think that we lose with time, with routine, with familiarity.
As I think about the joy that I felt to see my little girl and hold her in my arms and for her to not want to let go, as I meditate on that experience to soak it in and never forget it, I cannot help but think that perhaps I saw just a glimpse of what God feels when one of His children comes running home to Him. The Parable of Lost Things (sheep, coin, & son) in Luke 15 comes to mind. What rejoicing there is in heaven when one who is lost is found!
I never want to forget that joy.
I think so often we get comfortable and familiar with the people we love and we forget the joy that it is to know and love them. Familiarity breeds contempt, right? Even when they are gone, we so quickly forget the hole that only they can fill and that they are sorely missed.
Yet, with God we do this very thing. We spend so much time in church that we begin to feel contempt for His people. We spend so much time serving that we begin to feel deserving of service ourselves. We gradually work our way away from the church, or just leave it altogether, and we forget that the hole God fills can never be filled by anything or anyone else. We get to the point of spending so much time away from God that we forget that He is even missing - and yet He ought to be desperately and undeniably missed.
When you truly understand "how deep the Father's love for us," you will never want to leave Him again.
That you might know Christ,
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