Pleasant Inns

"Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home."

One of my favorite quotations by CSL in The Problem of Pain. It is so true that He delights in giving us respite from some of the frustrations of a temporal life on planet earth--but for the most part, this is where we live. We try (maybe I should say "I try") so hard to get comfortable in this life. By nature I am a nester. I like living in a homey place, with ambience. I hang things on the walls and rearrange furniture. (You can ask Phil about that.)

But it is all a yearning for "home"--that elusive thing for which we were created. The house with many mansions inside. What an image. Home is where we long to be at the end of a wearing day. There is no place like it. I thought it would be good to share some pictures of a few of the homes we enjoyed in Italy. The pink courtyard is inside the apartment building we lived in in Rome. A friendly, fat, black and white cat welcomed us back at the end of our forays each day. The tall, extremely narrow pink hotel (one room wide) is the unique hotel we stayed in in Genoa. We stayed in the Holiday Inn in Milan where a complimentary breakfast costs 15 euros. Luke and Bell stand before the front door of the sagging building in Venice where we climbed crooked stairs and slid across slanted floors. Each place had its appeal--the apartments moreso than the hotels.

Funny enough, as we trekked around each city, when we came to the end of the day, we said, "Let's go home," each resting place of our suitcases honored with the title "home." For pilgrims, I guess home is carried in your heart and where you rest at day's end.

Now we are home in Africa and contemplating the variety of homes we enjoyed in Europe. But looking forward to the home with our Father beside which all others pale.