"Are we there yet?"

Shaina and i have done an awful lot of traveling the past few days. be impressed. since friday morning we (or more accurantly I) have driven from cedartown, georgia (where my mom's wonderful parents live) to rome (where we picked up Bindi with her new radio+ CD player yayy) to cedartown, to birmingham, alabama (where we got lost and took a spontaneous visit to samford's campus and looked at our parents pictures in old yearbooks), to hueytown (where we spent the night with my brother's great family. whoo!), to the galleria (where we met up with some really awesome friends), to hueytown again (where we said goodbye.boo.), to hattiesburg (where we got lost and drove around for 2 hours. but survived thanks to the direction advice from a mississippian friend), to Lana's house (where we spent the night talking about london), to Wiggins (where we met shaina's awesome future roommate and her super fun family) and then to covington (where we reside now).
yepp.
we have made a lot of memorable moments in my little car.
the adventures with Bindi have begun.

yeah, okay.
so our most eventful day of driving was defintely saturday. and let me tell you it wasn't the easy day of our lives. >< don't get me wrong - it started off quite nicely as we hung out with our sister-in-law (or sister-by-love as we often call her) and our two adorable nephews. and catching up with friends while walking around alabama's biggest mall, playing pingpong, DDR, and playing in the toy shop was pretty awesome. and  its been wonderful havin some sister time in the car, catching up and praising the Lord with our new CD player. but i guess humans were only made to sit in cars for so long.
when we got lost in hattiesburg after a 3 hour journey with a near gas tank fiasco at the beginning, the tears were threating to come. more than threating, actually. of course, there was a lot of laughter mixed in with my frustration of being "trucked", our intense need to find a public place with a bathroom while our "trusty" gps Lori took us down back roads with shady houses (few and far between), Shaina's urge to film herself quoting her will as we continued to be followed into a dead end, my temporary fear that two old ladies had jumped into the back seat (i don't want to talk about it), and the internet exit we missed.
it was a long day.
the good news, however, is this. we found Lana. we watched the olympics at mugshots, and we made it to her house.
and today we didnt reallllyyy ever get lost.
yay.
and now for the deeperish stuff. taha
so i was thinking about our whole journey, all the crazy ups and downs, the laughter and even the tears we shared, when, once again i felt like there was a spiritual analogy i could take from the whole thing and it got me pretty excited.
you see, ever since going to college (and even some before i went) i've thought a lot about homesickness. its weird- being homesick. hits hard at the randomest times. but in a way its been a really, really good thing for me.
my grandmother taught me to tell people "i have 3 homes. one in thailand, one is hattiesburg, and one in heaven. let me tell you about that third one." :)
i am so excited about that third one.
mercyme has a song about being homesick, and i used to think it would be awfully painful to listen to while i tried to happily live my life away from my thailand home, but in actuality, its become quite a comfort to me during those homesick moments as it reminds me of my third home.
cause no matter how wonderful it feels to go back to my thailand home, the day i arrive at my heaven home is going to be tremedously more wonderful.
no matter how loved and accepted i feel at my thailand home, i'm going to feel tremedously more loved and accepted at my heaven home.
and no matter how much i love the great people God has put in my life at my thailand home or my hattiesburg home, i am learning to love my Father at my heaven home tremendously more.
as it should be.

sometimes i get so frustrated on this earth home. sometimes i marvel at how great the journey on the earth home is. but more and more often i'm finding myself asking the Lord "Can i be there yet?"
and yes, that is the reason for the quote at the top of the page. :P
i realize it sounds a litte "holier-than-thou" to talk at my longing for my heaven home that has grown greatly over the past couple of months and years, so please listen up as i explain - its not cause i think i'm ready for heaven. quite honestly, its often because i'm sick of my sin and my heart feels heavy because of the darkness of this world. Thank the Lord He is always there to carry that weight for me! :) but honestly, i do wanna go home (as that song says. not the mercyme one. another one. aha. i forget the title.)
obz, its not time for me to go yet, so you can pray i'll know what to do with these feelings.haha. and that to me living will be Christ (and nothing else) and death will be gain. cause won't that be beautiful?
so yeah. there's some rissa wisdom for ya! Keep ur chin up!  cause He's got a plan and He's bringing us home :)