Lessons from Lizzy McGuire

It is spring break, and so I have made the trek to my hometown five hours away.  Driving in is such a strange thing.  I have been away for months, and yet, it feels completely natural to be here.  I don’t even think about where to turn, I just know.  Most days in Michigan, I still have to think.  I note that several stores have new signs, and a new place has opened.  Still, I am overwhelmed by the comfort and familiarity I feel here.  I have been away a long time, but home is still home.

If you look carefully, you will discover that the back of my car holds a Michigan license plate.  The front of my car has an Illinois plate.  Illinois required that we have two plates.  Michigan saves money by requiring only one.  Their website states that you may have any decorative type of plate that you choose in your front license plate holder.  The decoration I choose is Illinois.  I claim dual citizenship.  I call the place where I was born and have spent most of my life, home.  I call the place where I own a house, live, and work, home. 

Lizzy McGuire taught me that you could have more than one best friend.  Is it also true that you can have more than one home? What does a place need to have in order to be home?  Is it more about what is in the space or about the people that are in the space?  I am beginning to think that you can always add places that are “home”, but can you ever take them away?  Yes, circumstances can remove the comforting pieces, but the history of rootedness can never be stolen.

I have always wondered about heaven and what it will feel like to be there.  Will it be like traveling to a strange town where I feel out of place?  Will it be like walking into a bad hotel room where you count the days until you can leave?  Maybe I ought to take my cues from my hometown.  I don’t live here, but when I arrive, I am comfortable and at peace because there are roots.  My roots in heaven won’t be from history of the past, but rather, they will be roots laid in place before I arrived by the One who is preparing me a place.