I am staying with my mom this week, in the house of my childhood in Lower Austria. But I'm homesick! I long for my own family, especially my husband, and my own home.
This house is very old and cold! It's time for my mom to let it go and find a new little nest. I know this city, but not many people anymore. The house offers little rest, the TV is running a lot, or my mom is on the phone. She likes noise. And there is only one room you can heat well. Oh, how I miss my home and the mountains and the forest and the sun and the snow! I am no longer a flatlander it seems! But maybe it's also due to winter. Lower Austria is beautiful when it's not winter. No place in the world is more beautiful than Tyrol in winter! Or maybe another place with mountains and snow and sun. Alaska or so.
How grateful you are for something when you miss it. My husband. My children. My wing chair. My cat. My books. My mountains. My pine forest. My creek. My church. My neighbors. Interesting to recognize how much you appreciate these things from afar.
I sneeze, I'm cold and everything is grey outside. The low air pressure impregnates the air outdoors with smoke from the chimneys. Greetings are very formal in this part of the country. The language is different, although the same.
And yet there are also bright spots. You have to look in different places. Red bright rose hips in a bare forest. A musician in the city singing "Heal the World". The yet too early lit second Advent candle on the homemade arrangement, to make it brighter, although it is cheating. Shared memories of childhood experiences. A delicious chocolate pudding and a warmed spelt bag for cozy feet.
God is everywhere. And perhaps here, in this constant fog and this cold ancient house, I am even more aware of how much I need the light of the world. Jesus is the one who gives me warmth and light and a home. And I carry it all within me, in my heart! No matter where I am.
I am the Light that has come into the world
so that all who believe in me
won´t have to stay any longer in the dark.
John 12:46