Gypsy Jo.

That’s what we used to call my mother in law, Josie.

She liked to move around.

A LOT.

I used to joke with her, saying I needed an address book just for her.

So as we made the drive to Delaware to bury her ashes this past March, I thought about all of the many places she lived over the years.

Now she was going to the place she wanted to be most – beside her husband.

As we stood at the cemetery, I remember saying:

 “This is her final address.”

But even as I uttered the words, I knew that wasn’t really a true statement.

Josie knew where her final address would be: in heaven with her Father and those who had gone before her.

My mother in law was a woman of faith, who started her morning with devotions and writing down her prayers.

Some of her journal entries began with this: 

Good morning, God.  Thru rain or shine you’ve given me a day all mine.

As loved ones gathered around the graveside, I read an entry she made expressing her desire for her family to know her heavenly Father.

I pray that one day – my family will have the opportunity to experience the quiet beauty, peace and solitude of finding, feeling and knowing God’s love.

Her words.

Seeing it in her writing seemed to carry a different weight.

Friends, that is the desire of His heart – that we find, feel and know His love.

We can see His desire for us in His word.

Like Josie had many addresses here on earth, our Father has many rooms prepared for His children in heaven.

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. “

John 14: 1-6 ESV

He is preparing for us all to come home.

Our final address.

The directions to get there are clear.

The way home is through Jesus.

Until then, my mother in law’s prayer is mine for you.

May you have the opportunity to experience the quiet beauty, peace and solitude of finding, feeling and knowing God’s love.

Amen.