Home!

It was one month ago today that Nathan had surgery at Oregon Health and Science University. They operated on his legs and jaws simultaneously. He still walks with a bit of a limp and he'll need more oral surgery. (He won't get replacement teeth implants until October or November.) But he has a long break before his next surgery (on July 17), so we've taken the opportunity to head home to the Philippines--for the first time since the accident.

We landed in Manila yesterday. As we drove home from the airport, I asked Nathan how it felt to be home. "Rapturous," he said with a grin.

I share Nathan's sense of excitement and relief. I am thrilled to be back under the same roof with Hannah and Stacey. I am, at the same time, sobered by the thought of what might have been. I told Nathan as we rode home from the airport, "I'm sure glad to be bringing you home in a taxi...instead of a hearse." (God has been so gracious to our family in sparing Nathan. I'm once again reminded of the words of Psalm 56:13 (in the New Living Translation): "You have rescued me from death... So now I can walk in your presence, O God, in your life-giving light.")

I've been thinking recently about what it means to be home. Some weeks ago, I got email from Hannah saying that she'd spent a couple days as the houseguest of a friend in Baguio City (where we lived for seven wonderful years). Our friend suggested we move back to Baguio. "Why don't you come home?" she asked. I was touched by her choice of words. "Just where is our home? " I asked myself.

"Home," it is said, "is where the heart is." But I concluded that home is where we have a place in the heart of another, a place in the heart of someone who loves us.

About that time, I read Psalm 90:1 (in the NLT): "Lord, through all the generations, you have been our home!" What a wonderful thought!

It may be confusing to try to identify just where our earthly home is. Is it Manila? Portland? Baguio? (I even have several places in Austria that I called "home" for a while! And I've hung photos of Oregon in our house in Manila to try to feel at home in two places at once!) But our truest home is in the heart of God. That is not just a place where we are always welcome; it's a place that we will never ever leave!