The Place I Knew Before.

Today I arrived in a place I knew before I knew very much at all: home.

Elliston, Virginia.

But even this place is not my true home. Even this place filled with memories, events of long (not that long) ago, filled with love and struggle and shouts and tears and hugs and warm greetings, even this place is not where I was made for.

I was made for the reality behind this shadowy land. I was made for the place where all the good of this land is multiplied, intensified, beautified, realized and all the bad of this land is evacuated, emaciated, depleted.

My true home is the place I knew before I knew very much at all: Eden. The New Jerusalem. The very real and tangible Presence of God.

In the meantime, until Jesus comes crashing through the heavens, this is where I’ll call home-home. Home is Central, SC. Home-home is Elliston, VA.

Elliston is where my mom and brother currently reside. It is where I went to middle school. It is where I graduated from high school. I found love and life while I resided here. Elliston is a very tiny town, not 7 minutes long, but it is large in my heart. It is where I met my friend Jeremy, the one friend from high school with whom I intentionally try to keep up. It is the springboard from which I jumped to meet my friends Sonia and Lori; long live the Three Amigas. It is the diving board from which I dove (fell?) into Liberty University and Look Up Lodge, two of the places that have shaped me most intellectually and spiritually.

But this place is just a plot of land. My home-home is my family, my dearest loved ones with whom and through whom I have grown.

My Home is the same. My Family, my Dearest Loved Ones with Whom and through Whom I have grown.

That. Is more. Than land.