Native-born Southerners will sometimes detect my plain vanilla accent and ask me where I’m from. Assuming they’re asking what state and not what planet, I tell them I grew up in Indiana.
Be that as it may, I think I was born with a homing device in my heart that pointed south. It wasn’t any one thing, but a combination that convinced me I wanted to live here—the warm weather, books like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Gone With the Wind,” SEC football on TV, the personalities and wonderful drawls of the Southerners I encountered.
I skedaddled south as soon as I graduated from high school and spent some wonderful years at Auburn University, where I was called a “damn Yankee” only once. I left there to marry the guy who’s still my husband and we moved to Louisville, Ky. I suppose some might consider Louisville to be in the South … but only if they’ve never lived in the real South.
When Joe got a job offer in Greenwood in 1980, we jumped on it. Driving into town with all our earthly possessions, I knew we were home, and so we have been. So much so, in fact, that every time we go anywhere else, I’m always, always ready to get back here.
We just returned from a trip to Indiana and as I ran errands in Greenwood and Abbeville on that first morning back, I was overwhelmed with how good it felt to home again. After being smiled at and spoken to by a number of strangers in the parking lot of a store, I got inside and overheard a very animated older man explaining to the cashier in great detail why he especially likes the model of car she drives. He then came over and gave me an enthusiastic review of several coffee brands on the shelves. As I paid for my groceries, the cashier and I were laughing about that chatty fellow and his confession that he drinks nine or 10 cups of coffee every day—a fact that likely explained his exuberance.
As I left that store, an elderly man sitting on a bench with his dog also made a point of saying hello. Then another shopper insisted on taking my cart back for me after I’d unloaded my groceries. Another stop at another store yielded more stories like these. Pleasantries and smiles exchanged with total strangers. It’s something you could take for granted if you’d never lived in other parts of the country. It’s something that makes this place feel like home.
But as much as I love it here, there’s another homing device in my heart that’s even more powerful than the one that brought me South. This one is set on heaven.
Heaven isn’t a cliché or platitude to be mentioned only at funerals. It’s not just a nice consolation prize for people whose lives here are miserable. It’s what God has always wanted for us. It’s what we were made for. It will make the very best this world has to offer seem incredibly dull and dim in comparison. It will scratch every itch, heal every wound and settle every question. It’s what the Bible calls the “blessed hope” for all who’ve accepted God’s gift of salvation through faith in Jesus.
Longing for heaven isn’t a death wish; it’s a life wish. Whether my heart stops beating or Jesus returns in my lifetime, either way I win. I hope for the latter, but either way, I get to go home. Finally, really home.
Don’t take my word for it; take Jesus’s (John 14:2): “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”