I lay this morning in that quietness between sleep and fully awake and I held as still as possible and willed myself to stay there. 

I had been dreaming of my daughter, and I was holding her again. 

We were in the hospital, and she was very sick. So sick that she lay in the hospital bed, with lots of tubing and she was restless. I scooped her up, and held her, her back against my chest, her sweat little head under my chin, and she calmed down and relaxed and rested so sweetly and I wanted to sit there forever.

There was a deep deep peace in my dream and it should not have been there. When do you feel deep peace in a hospital room with a critically ill child? 

The peace I felt in my dream….I can explain it in only word. HOME.

My heart was at home. Everything else seemed to fade. And it was Kierra and I….our hearts together, and not time or death or medical intervention or white sterile rooms could destroy that peaceful feeling of HOME. 

My words are so tiny and course to describe that epiphany. 

(Epiphany : a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience ) 

It reminds me of this verse: Romans 8:38,39 (caps mine)

And I am CONVINCED that NOTHING can ever separate us from Gods love. Neither DEATH nor LIFE, neither angels or demons, neither our fears for today, or our worries about tomorrow – not even the powers of hell can separate us from Gods love.

No power in the sky above, or in the earth below- indeed nothing in ALL creation will EVER BE ABLE to separate us from the LOVE of GOD that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

My heart was so at rest, that I could have stayed there forever and been perfectly content. That’s the feeling I got. There was stress and hard things all around me. My husband and Kobe were very alive in my heart, but they were not Kierra and holding her at that moment in my dream made my heart feel  HOME , because that is what I had been missing so much in my life and at that precise moment, that was all that mattered. My whole body relaxed and my heart rested. It was where it was meant to be. 

I didn’t know what I had been longing for….there was a hole in my heart that I didn’t realize was affecting me in so very many different ways. It literally touched every area of my life. Like a fragrance you could not see but was all around you, every moment  of every day. An ache I knew was there, but was oblivious to the completeness it brought me when it was filled. And I never wanted to leave. 

Isn’t that the longing of our hearts for God- our Father. And that aroma an example of His grace and Love  that fills every single moment of our life. At the same time,  I can’t wait to get to Heaven and have that COMPLETENESS He has promised that we don’t even really understand that we are missing. 

I think God gave me that dream out of His loving Father heart. A picture of how it will feel when we get to Heaven and are enfolded in His loving arms. I know He is a High and Holy God and we will bow at His feet in awe and worship and adoration. But I think we will also feel like we have finally come HOME. He has not promised to be our Father for nothing….I will be their Father and they will be my sons and daughters, says the LORD ALMIGHTY.

He longs for the day when He can take our hurt, broken, earth sick hearts into His arms and make them whole. We will never want to leave His arms. He delights over us. He longs to hold us even more then we long to be held. ( how is that possible?) He knows our weakness. The pain that we cannot express to anyone. Just as my Kierra had no words to tell us of her pain…we have no words adequate to speak of our own brokenness and deepest hurts and longings. But that doesn’t matter to God. His love engulfs us. His arms surround us. His heart is for us. And someday, I want to reach out, and be embraced by the One who created me. The One who alone can make each of us whole again. Who can give us what we have no idea that we are missing. The one who shows us what Home really means….for all Eternity. 

Please understand, that Kierra is not my whole life. My Stephen, and my Kobe, and my Wee One in Heaven, my family and friends here, they all matter incredibly much. They each have a place in my heart that would leave a huge hole if they were gone. But today, I can hold my Kobe, I can hug my Stephen. I can physically reach  out and feel their love. That soothes the longing within me. I think someday, though, in that HOME, we will actually see clearly…face to face and my love for them (and all my friends and family) will take on new dimensions that I have no idea even exist today. 

And the best part…..we will be HOME as in perfect peace, never leave, stay forever, heart at rest, satisfied and loved and held. Honoring, praising , worshiping and glorifying our Father and King. 

We will NEVER want to leave. 

And there will be no waking to having it all a dream. 

We will be LIVING -ACTUALLY LIVING the DREAM!!