Homesickness

I had the privilege of being a guest on Family Life Radio in Arizona this week. It doesn't hurt that my brother is the co-host of the show, and his partner is one of my best friends. I can see God's hand in orchestrating my brother, Kevin's, move to Tuscon to co-host a morning radio show there. The radio station, KFLR, hired Lorri Allen first. I worked with Lorri at KLTV in Tyler, and we have been good friends ever since, even though she's a Longhorn and I'm an Aggie.
So, when KFLR hired her this spring and said she could pick her co-host, she chose Kevin, whom she knew through her friendship with me. The two sound great together and you can listen to them by going to www.myflr.org. Click the tab that says "find a station" and then the dot where Tuscon is on the map. That will launch your Media Player and you can listen to them in the mornings on your computer.
Kevin and Lorri called to talk on the radio show this week about homesickness. They talk about all kinds of interesting topics and homesickness just happened to be one of them. Kevin knows that issue is something with which I struggle. He knows it may take me two days to drive to a destination, but I can drive home in one day. After one day at Texas A&M as a college student, I packed my stuff and headed home. Dad told me to bow my neck and get back down there and I'm glad I did.
It's not that I have any great advice for dealing with homesickness, I just know about it. I've outgrown some of my homesickness, but while Kevin has taken exciting jobs in Cincinnati, Dallas, Austin, Waco, and now Tuscon, I've made my living within a rock's throw of where I was born, except when I worked at KLTV. To this day, I enjoy traveling, so long as I know I'll be back in my own bed in a few days.
In the interview, I told them that people today have better ways to stay connected than when I was younger. Now, we have cell phones and texting and Skype and Facebook. I would have enjoyed that technology when I went off to college.
Lorri asked me why I think we suffer from homesickness. I discussed how we are created to love one another and to be loved. Science has proven that we are "hard wired" to be connected to friends and family. Our brains were designed to find connections with others -- and with God -- and we thrive on those connections. When we leave our comfort zones, or the comfortable presence of our loved ones, we can feel it. It hits me when the sun sets and I'm nowhere near my home town. I've simply come to realize that that's the way I am.
I wonder if some of that homesickness is the realization that no matter where we are on earth, we're never in our true home. When we are present in the body, Paul said, we are away from the Lord. When we arrive in God's presence, we'll never feel misplaced, lonesome or homesick again. Kevin pointed out that maybe God allows us to feel homesick to remind us that we aren't ever really home. Not in this life. Jesus said our hearts should be in heaven. That's our true home.
We plan to go see Kevin and Lorri sometime this summer. I'm looking forward to seeing them, but I know I'll feel that tug while I'm away.