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Are You Homesick?

   Written by on May 18, 2017 at 9:32 am

logo-hevenerHomesickness is real!  Perhaps as a youngster, you went away to summer camp or, later in life, to serve in the military.  If so, you may have been among the many who experienced homesickness upon leaving home, especially early in life.  What is homesickness?  Although there are many definitions, perhaps the simplest and most accurate definition is “a deep longing for home and family.”  A sudden change in lifestyle and change of atmosphere can be a traumatic experience.

My first experience upon leaving home for a longer period of time was when I went to college in Tennessee. After some time, when my parents suggested that I enter a college closer home, which was near Staunton, Virginia, I jumped at the suggestion, for I had experienced a deep longing for home and family while in Tennessee.

The apostle Paul understood the reality of homesickness when he described in chapter 2 of Philippians, how his faithful assistant and fellow-laborer for Christ, Epaphroditus, became homesick for his friends and family.  The passage reads:

25-30 I have considered it desirable, however, to send you Epaphroditus. He has been to me brother, fellow-worker and comrade-in-arms, as well as being the messenger you sent to see to my wants. He has been home-sick for you, and was worried because he knew that you had heard that he was ill. Indeed, he was ill, very dangerously ill, but God had mercy on him—and incidentally on me as well, so that I did not have the sorrow of losing him to add to my sufferings. I am particularly anxious, therefore, to send him to you so that when you see him again you may be glad, and to know of your joy will lighten my own sorrows. Welcome him in the Lord with great joy! You should hold men like him in highest honor, for his loyalty to Christ brought him very near death—he risked his life to do for me in person what distance prevented you all from doing. (Phillips translation.)

One historian writing of the War Between the States penned this: “Abner R. Small, a commissioned officer in the 16th Maine Volunteers, was captured by Confederate forces in August 1864 and spent several months as a prisoner of war. In his diary, Small recorded the effects of imprisonment upon his fellow inmates. They became homesick and disheartened,” he noted. “They … were dying of nostalgia.”

“Nostalgia, once regarded as a condition of homesickness, was widespread during the American Civil War. Wartime letters and diaries, as well as post-war memoirs and reminiscences, reveal much about the emotional sensitivity of Civil War fighting men towards their homes.”

“For the most part, Union and Confederate armies were comprised of young volunteers who were away from their homes and families for the first time. The majority of recruits came from an agricultural or rural background.”

Mac Wiseman, a Virginian from the Shenandoah Valley, did much to popularize the Bluegrass song, “I Wonder How the old Folks Are at Home.”  In it, a young lad left home to find his fortune in the big world; however, before long, he experienced homesickness and longed for home and family.  Here is a portion of the lyrics, written by Herbert Lambert; F.W. Wondersloot wrote the music:

I wonder how the old folks are at home

I wonder if they miss me while I roam

I wonder if they pray for the boy who went away

And left his dear old parents all alone

You could hear the cattle lowin’ in the lane

You could almost see the fields of blue grass green

You could almost hear them cry as they kiss their boy goodbye

I wonder how the old folks are at home….

As Christians, are we homesick for our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and for the heavenly home that He has gone to prepare for us?  We pray to Him, trust Him with our daily lives, and put our eternal future in His hands.  He, the resurrected one, demonstrated His power over death, which shall be overcome at the resurrection. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:

51-53 Listen, and I will tell you a secret. We shall not all die, but suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, every one of us will be changed as the trumpet sounds! The trumpet will sound and the dead shall be raised beyond the reach of corruption, and we who are still alive shall suddenly be utterly changed. For this perishable nature of ours must be wrapped in imperishability, these bodies which are mortal must be wrapped in immortality. (Emphasis mine.)

54 So when the perishable is lost in the imperishable, the mortal lost in the immortal, this saying will come true: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’ ‘O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?’

55-57 It is sin which gives death its power, and it is the Law which gives sin its strength. All thanks to God, then, who gives us the victory over these things through our Lord Jesus Christ! (Phillips translation.)

I am homesick for Jesus to come and for heaven; perhaps, you are also!

Until next week, may God richly bless you and yours!

Contact: fhevener@oilart.com;(434) 392-6255; www.guthriememorial.org.

©2017 by Fillmer Hevener

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