Homesickness finally hit me this week for the first time since I moved over three months ago.  I'm finally slowing down long enough to start processing my new life.  At the same time, five hundred miles from me, precious hearts are being broken, and I am too far to be close.

My friend and I have been chatting this week, and there is a steady pattern to our conversation.

Sam made it home. 
She made it home for Christmas.

One by one, saints whose lives I only know from a distance are going home.  One in high school, another in a nursing home.  As I type, I am waiting to hear from another friend who is spending her December sitting bedside in a hospital, waiting for her mother to make it home with the others.

What a homecoming it must be.

Not that long ago, I walked this same path that these friends now tread.  I remember the night my dad made it home.  I can't help but wonder if these friends are experiencing the same thoughts and emotions I did.  Pain, yes.  But more overwhelming than that was the peace.  Peace that transcends all understanding, that guards our hearts and minds.  Peace that makes the whole process somewhat bearable.  And hope.  Hope in knowing that this is not the end.  Oh no.  Definitely not the end.  Merely the beginning.

I wonder if, instead of the shadow of death, my friends see their loved ones in the very presence of Christ.  That is the thought that consumed me during that late-night drive home from the hospital.  It was overwhelming and I couldn't think on it more than a few moments at a time, for it was too much.  When we walked out of the hospital room for the last time, we left my dad's body laying in the bed, cold and silent and still.  But he was not dead, and I knew that as tangibly as I knew the sky was black and the stars were shining over the dark county roads.  I cried, not because my dad was dead, but because he was in the very presence of Jesus, and it was more than my heart could contain.

These saints, young and old, knew Jesus.  They believed Him and knew Him and loved Him in this life.  And because of their faith and His grace, they stand with Him now, more alive than ever.

I wonder if my friends are brought to their knees in the hope and peace and wonder of this beautiful mystery.

Sam.
Estrid.
Melvin.

They made it home.