Going Home

Have I ever told you about the song that I begin to think and feel and sing every time I am getting ready to go home? Sitting on my bed, nearly two hours away from home, seven hours away from my planned time of departure, how appropriate that I would hear it playing as our conversation lulls. My sweet friend, giving me a rest from packing, joined me to take advantage of this pre-break stillness to catch up on everything we have missed of each other in the busyness of the semester, and now we allow the conversation to pause as this song plays quietly.


I've been feeling kind of restless
I've been feeling out of place
I can hear a distant singing
A song that I can't write 
And it echoes of what I'm always trying to say

There's a feeling I can't capture
It's always just a prayer away
I want to know the ending
Things hoped for but not seen
But I guess that's the point of hoping anyway

Of going home, I'll meet you at the table
Going home, I'll meet you in the air
And you are never too young to think about it
Oh, I cannot wait to be home

I'm confined by my senses
To really know what you are like
You are more than I can fathom
And more than I can guess
And more than I can see with you in sight

But I have felt you with my spirit
I have felt you fill this room
And this is just an invitation
Just a sample of the whole
And I cannot wait to be going home

Going home, I'll meet you at the table
Going home, I'll meet you in the air
And you are never too young to think about it
Oh, I cannot wait to be going, to be going home

Face to face, how can it be
Face to face, how can it be
Face to face, how can it be

this is just an invitation
Just a sample of the whole
And I cannot wait to be going home

("Going Home" by Sarah Groves)


I know that the words refer to a different home, I know they are sung to a different listener, but the separation, the longing, the rest, the anticipation is what I feel. I am going home to rest among my family. I am going home to put aside my duties for a time. I am going home to sit around the table that my dad made, I'm going home to linger there with the ones that I have not seen in too long. 

The meaning of the words change as I walk in the door. I came home to sorrow. I came home to tears. I came home to find that the one had left the ninety-nine again. I came home missing his presence by mere hours. Now I sing for the home without sorrow, now I sing to call him home. When one is missing from the table, when a voice is missing from the house, all we can do it wait. Complete and whole is a thing for another time. Now we are to watch and wait.