My family and I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the beach last week.

Now, we are not necessarily “beach people”, but we enjoy the beauty of the ocean and the occasional sandcastle, and particularly liked exploring Charleston with its architecture, history, and great food.

I LOVE vacation, but there are things about ‘vacation’ that have their own challenges. Change in routine. Beds that aren’t ‘quite right’. Space issues. Food differences. Sunburns…anyone else understand these at all?

We seem to overcome these minor struggles to enjoy the awesomeness of something new, relatively relaxing, and fun.

Then…we leave and that’s when the coolest thing happens for me.

As we drive back toward home, and those blue mountains start to appear on the horizon, the most amazing feeling swells in my heart. A comforting feeling. A strange kind of anticipation.

Those mountains have been a part of me my whole life. A ‘sign’ of home. A sort of fence around my world and I love seeing them welcoming me. I guess, those Blue Ridge Mountains provide a sense of belonging.

Don’t get me wrong, Charleston is a beautiful place, and for someone else, those lovely houses lining the cobblestone streets provide the same sense of belonging to them that the mountains do for me.

It’s a strange sort of feeling that really doesn’t have a clear-cut definition, I guess.

Well, today, as those mountains appeared in my view again and the same sweet welcome flooded through me, I had the sudden thought…“What would it feel like to glimpse my TRUE home? The home for my soul?”

If my heart glows with excitement over just the view of those mountains, how much more amazing will it be to glimpse into the ultimate place of belonging. Heaven. God’s presence.

As Christians, our hearts are in a constant state of ‘looking to the horizon’. C.S. Lewis put it like this, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

If our hearts belong to Christ and we believe the beauty of what He’s told us about Heaven, then I can only imagine what anticipation we’ll experience when we glimpse up to the horizon and see our forever-home.

It can certainly be a great reminder when this world wounds or wearies us to remember there is something…and Someone greater than this world – and we belong with Him.