Out of Towner

A strange feeling enveloped me this Christmas season: I am now an out of towner in my home town. I am the relative that people see at Christmas parties, special occasions, and few other times in between. I am the person that has to stand up when people at church welcome those that "aren't always with us." I will spent the next six months in Guatemala, and I won't return to MI after that time! Bring on the transitions from college to the 'real world' I guess.

These emotions give me small, small bit of insight into what Christ felt during his time on earth. Not at home or welcome (ok, I can't identify with that one) in the world that he created. But he persisted anyway. That dynamic, that healing of relationships broken, that reconciling creation to God, is what Christmas is about.

Grandville will always be my home as much as anyplace can be. I guess none of us are really at home in the nostalgic sense. There will always be a part of us feeling a little uncomfortable, a little off, because we live in a world that does not align with what it was created to be.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Years--start reclaiming some of our home and looking for ways we, as God's chosen people, can continue the story and move things toward the way they were meant to be in preparation for an eventual homecoming.