Sense of belonging

I was approaching home. I could feel it. I stopped the car, stepped out and breathed deeply. Country air, sweet-smelling grass…I was almost there. As I drove I looked at the countryside. This sense of place, sense of belonging, evoked an intense feeling of knowing and remembrance. The highway runs through sparsely populated farmland, the bluffs visible off at a distance. I thought of the ancestors, both American Indian and European, who had traveled this same path–some walking, others on horseback, still others by wagon, and finally by automobile. I felt a kind of spiritual investment, a relationship with the land and those who had gone before. It reminded me of baptism–a sense of renewal, rebirth, change and growth, yet steadfast.

This message is adapted from “The Call Home” written by Marilyn M. Sorenson-Bush in the May 1998 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine. Please pray for voting members to the Tenth Triennial Convention who are traveling today to Minneapolis.