Going home

We long for the comfort and peace that a home provides.

Samantha J. Huebner

Doesn’t it feel like you just started college a week ago? You moved into a new dorm room at a new school with new people. It was probably a whirlwind of a couple of weeks as you adjusted to your new lifestyle as a college student. New classes and new routines. That’s the life of a college student, isn’t it?

Crazy to think that it’s already November and the end of the semester is soon approaching. Where did the time go? College seems to pass by in the blink of an eye.

For some, it might feel like you just got started and are finally hitting your stride. You’re figuring things out, maybe for the first time! For others, it might feel as if this semester is taking forever and you just can’t wait for it to be over!

No matter which one you relate to more, I think both sides can agree that Thanksgiving break is a much needed time to recharge mentally, physically, and spiritually. It’s a break from papers, projects, and presentations. It’s a chance to finally go home.

When I first started college, I couldn’t wait to go home. I was terribly homesick and missed everything about home: my bed, my personal space, my parents, my routine. It was the normalcy of home that I missed and the comfort that it brought me.

What is it about that comfort that we as people long for? We crave to be liked and welcomed by others, to find somewhere where we can feel safe and secure, to find comfort in a certain place, and to be surrounded by like-minded people. But it doesn’t always happen right away, does it? Sometimes it takes an entire semester or more to find that second home. We have to wait to find comfort.

We as Christians long to find that comfort and peace. We long for a home. We long for a place where we can stand together as one church and one people who are united around one truth, one purpose. Jesus promises us: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going” (John 14:1-4).

Jesus promises us an eternal home full of comfort and peace. He gives us a hope that keeps us looking forward to what is ours. The apostle Paul writes, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). In this world we wait for the eternal home promised to us. Jesus promises that it is so much grander than our homes here on earth, no matter what comfort they bring us.

So with Thanksgiving break and the anticipation of home looming right around the corner, be thankful for a place where you can find comfort and peace. And then find comfort and peace in the fact that you have a Savior who has a prepared an eternal home just for you.


Samantha Huebner, a 2019 graduate of Wisconsin Lutheran
College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a member at Peace, Sun
Prairie, Wisconsin.


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Author: Samantha J. Huebner
Volume 106, Number 11
Issue: November 2019

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