I went on a hike the other day and when I got back I pulled my shoes off and just spent some time in my lawn chair looking up at the wind blowing in the pines. Besides the awareness of a blister forming on my left heel, it was kind of a moment. I got teary eyed. A part of my soul poked its’ head up in that moment and made me aware of how nice it will be to be home. Not a home here on this beleaguered earth, but home home. With the Good Lord. Don’t misunderstand I’m in no hurry to make that happen. My bucket list is long and ever evolving. However, I am aware of what an amazing feeling it will be to be somewhere there is no bad. No blisters. Nobody worried about money. Nobody sick. Nobody with bad intentions. Nobody we have to guard ourselves around. Nobody we have to protect anyone from. That will be a moment. A moment worth everything. I imagine it will be a moment similar to one I have relived in my mind for years. A moment from my childhood. It was a family vacation. Five siblings and my folks crammed into a sub-compact car. Fights and tears and smells. Feet in my face and my fingers stuck out a window for some fresh air. Stops for hamburgers in greasy paper and cokes with melted ice. The smell of my mother’s cigarette, the rumble of my dad’s voice singing and the highway stretching out endlessly. It was waking up in the middle of the night still in the car with my little sister’s sweaty head on my leg. Moving her, making her cry and hearing the snap of my mother’s fingers in the darkness. Swallowing the surge of anger that I should get in trouble for wanting that heaviness off of me. It was the feeling that it was never going to end. That that trip would just go on forever and I would always be stuck in that cramped, sticky car. With people I loved but, also, a little miserable. It was the moment we finally got there. Vera and Ernest’s house. A kind couple that took my mother in as a child and, later, when she had five children loved them too. Put the fourth of those children in a grocery cart and talked to her all the way through the store like everything she said was important. Bought her a drinking cup shaped like a little bear and told everyone back at the house it was just for her. The kind of people you don’t have to guard yourself around. And the feeling of finally being there. Our little car in the driveway and their white house in front of us. Neat and small with a porch that ran along the front. There were two metal chairs out front. One with a blanket draped over the back. There were metal pails to snap green beans into and a black wire screen door. And framed in that screen door was Vera. Waiting for us. After that it was a mad search for our lost socks and bookmarks that had fallen. It was my dad telling us to gather up any food and trash. It was my brother’s elbow as he climbed over me trying to be the first one out. It was the ache of my knees as they unbent after hours spent folded sideways beside me. It was the smooth wood of their front porch and the feeling of my tennis shoes hanging from my fingers. It was her gathering me into her arms. Being smashed against her soft shirt that smelled like flowers and her strong arms patting me on the back. Pushing me away from her so she could see me. Her fingers smoothing down my wild hair and wiping something sticky off my face. Her hands pushing me into her little living room where I stood grouped with my brothers and sisters waiting for instructions. The instructions were to strip down. One at a time in her big yellow bathroom. There was a stack of clean white t-shirts and each of us put one on. Then, it was a bed. A pull out on a couch with the whitest sheets there ever could be. They smelled like flowers too. A crisp case covered a soft pillow that crinkled when I laid my head down. The luggage would be unpacked later. Baths would be needed. Admonishments to not roughhouse in the tiny house with so many pretty things but, first, rest. I fell asleep that afternoon completely contented. I wanted nothing. I needed nothing. I just wanted to nap in that pleasant house. To spread out as much as I wanted. To reach my toes down to the cool part of the bed not yet touched. I wanted to listen to the sound of the gentle rain falling and grown up voices visiting. The rise and fall of what they were saying creating the best kind of background noise. I burrowed into my crinkly pillow a couple of times, flipped over a couple of times and then I slept. Really, really slept. This is what I imagine part of the experience of heaven will be like. A much needed period of rest after a long and difficult trip. Warmth and clean clothes and the sound of loved ones voices nearby. All of it existing because of the goodness of the person who owns the house. A person who loves me and will gather me in for a warm hug and wipe away some of the dirt from my trip and send me in to gather with my equally tired family. Thank the Lord for people like Vera and Ernest. Hospitality and kindness are the bellwethers of heaven. Thank him also for the feeling of longing. For intently listening to me and knowing just what I need to remember that I am still traveling. Still on a journey home to him. Crisp pillowcases and a blister and worries and wind blowing through the pines. God is, indeed, good all the time.