Dear Wanderer, Come home
Dear Wanderer,
I’m sitting here in a quiet house today. The Christmas lights are shining on the tree, all of my men are at work or at school, and the Yankee candle’s burning. It’s very peaceful.
With the holidays approaching, you’ve been on my mind. For days now, I’ve been thinking about you. Thinking of your struggles. Thinking of what it is I’m wanting to say. What rises quietly within my heart every time is two, small words. An invitation…
Come home.
I think I have some sense of how hard it is for you to return. Seems to me that perhaps being at home is a painful reminder of all the things that hurt you. Of where it all went wrong.
My hunch is that when you come home, the loudest voices are the ones that shout to you of your failures; that remind you of all your mistakes, inadequacies and the loneliness and rejection you’ve suffered.
Perhaps you feel left behind. That the rest of the world has moved on, moved up, moved ahead while you’re still stuck, spinning your wheels. Failed again.
When I get just a glimpse through your lens, I can see it, and I can feel just a bit of your pain.
“Come home.” The invitation.
What I’ve been thinking about in this Advent season is this–what if coming home wasn’t so much an invitation to come back to all the old (despair, sorrow, trauma, etc.), but an invitation to come home to redemption? To return to love? To be met with every good and perfect gift instead of regret?
What if (here’s what I’m thinking) you don’t actually come home alone, but what if you could, rather, make the trip back with a fellow traveler? With a Friend?
What if, instead of expecting to hear the same, old voices, you could know that Love Himself travels with you and that Love’s waiting with arms open wide? What if that?
Here’s what I want to tell you about Jesus today: He knows how you feel. Somehow, I ended up in Isaiah 53 the other day, and I had a little appointment with Suffering Himself over coffee.
I thought of you.
“He hath no form or comeliness; no beauty that we should desire Him, nothing in His appearance that would attract us.
“He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and we hid our faces from Him. He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
“Surely, He hath borne (taken up) our griefs and weaknesses and carried our sorrows, and yet we considered Him stricken by God…
:”BUT He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised and crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that bought our peace was on Him, and by His stripes (lashes) we are healed.
“All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned, every one, to his own way, and the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
Unthinkable, isn’t it? That the very Son of God was considered homely. Low. not worthy of mankind’s attention. Rather, rejected by the ones He came to die for, and to save.
Rejected in his own hometown. By “His” people. My God.
I hope this comforts your heart, dear wand’ring soul. I hope that it spreads ointment on your seeping wounds, to hear and see the fellowship of Jesus in our sufferings, in our sins and weaknesses. Oh, blessed thought, this–that Jesus has carried it all.
This is the lens you can look through, for this is the lens that is true; that is right. The old one is false and full of distortions, and it’s made you so miserable and sick.
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“Come home.” You’re not alone.
“Come home.” You’re fully accepted.
“Come home.” Your past’s forgiven.
“Come home.” Your future is bright.
“Come home.” You are deeply loved.
With all the love in my heart,
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