nostalgia.

: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition;
: the state of being homesick.
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(forgive my jibberish, but here i go again)...
songs always tend to strike at my heart-chords.

the latest to do so was "Slow Dancing In A Burning Room" by John Mayer.

call me sentimental... but as i sat in my car, phrases & piano keys struck up thoughts of the past - of people no longer a part of my every-day, situations that now exist only in memory... i saw myself running my hands along the top of a white picket fence, but none of the splinters that should have been there in reality met my touch. instead, the deepest, sharpest, bittersweet craving for those times, places, & people panged more like a longing for heaven than for what was.

maybe that's why at funerals we so easily reflect on the best pieces of our relationships.
after the page has turned, normal & human realities melt into bliss.
when everything fits together on this month's calendar, it's just 'what is,'
but when it has become 'what was,' we recognize the redeemed bits more readily.

besides, how could we possibly see the supernatural gifts that exist in their own timeframe?

it'd be too soon... or would it?

either way, i am convinced that what our hearts ache for is truer than what actually was;
we are homesick because we have a home to miss.

although the reminiscence may be real or imagined, that which we long for IS the truth of His intention:
images of function that should have existed had we chosen life like He wanted for us.
a pastor recently described miracles as merely a glimpse at the way things were designed to work.

this place may be broken, but all that is good, right, & righteous runs like a thread binding my storybook His storybook.
so when i get caught up in how i thought things were or how they could have been, or when i start feeling homesick for a past season, i pray to God that He'll take me one step further to what He has for me - what's BEST
because that's where these yearnings are truly reaching for: the potential of fullness that exists right now in this moment in my relationship with Him.

the shards i've seen are merely snapshots

& He's waiting for me outside

so i'm trading the scrap-book for a blank page.

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"For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus & your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom & of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, & what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe..." - Ephesians 1:15-19