Coming Home

Recently as I found myself looking up at the magnificent Blue Ridge Mountains I ask myself the same question I have ask so many times before, “How is it that you can come home to a place that has never really been your home?” Yes, I was born in Tennessee but truly I did not live here but just a few weeks. And true, I loved visiting my Dad’s home place in Kentucky as I was growing up. It left a lasting impression on my perspective of life and working the land. But mostly, that help create my core values of cherishing God and the simple blessings of life. There was no doubt He is in absolutely ever part of our existence. So yes, they, along with their farm and land, made a great impact on my life. But I still, after all these years, ponder why or should I say how is it that there is a longing, an empty place in my soul, for something that I feel I have lost yet I never had to begin with; a home in these mountains?

I have contemplated this many times and yet there is no clear-cut answer to the reason I miss my home in these mountains.

Whether it is 35 years ago or just this week, when my eyes see the first glimpse of these mountains, I am home! My soul is full! This overwhelming sense of completeness fills my heart and a peace settles over me that is equal to the most cherished of reverent times in worship. There is a fullness in such a way that nothing else can explain.

Recently I have begun to put forth a few thoughts as I look heavenward in thought and prayer. And as I look up to these mountains this idea certainly puts a warm smile on my face and gives me an ever hopeful heart for the future. For just as the Lord first showed His precious self to me in these mountains when I was a girl maybe these mountains are a glimpse…just a glimpse of heaven. And maybe, it is because I am in what some would call my Autumn Years that this makes more sense to me as I read these words in scripture…

Psalm 121:1-2
I life up my eyes to the mountains-
Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.