Flight 3221 Service to Charlotte

I am currently sitting in the Toronto Airport waiting on my flight to Charlotte. I've done this several times over the last year and half, but there is something very different about this trip. I am headed to Charlotte for a visit, I'm not coming home from one...this is a very hard concept for me to wrap my mind around. The thought of visiting Charlotte is just weird. Charlotte is where I grew up, it is the familiar, it is home, and yet I am coming for a visit. A rather long visit which I am grateful for, but a visit all the same. It's so weird because I am so excited to come, to see people, to eat at Chickfila and go to Target, but I will dearly miss Ingersoll. I will miss my husband, I will miss Juanita :) I will miss waking up to snow (as long as I can stay inside in the warmth and not have to go out and brave the cold!), I will miss family and friends, I will miss home. I feel torn in two different directions, I want to be in Charlotte and I want to be in Ingersoll at the same time. They are both home, they both hold my heart, they both call my name asking me to come and be, but I will always have to leave one for the other. But in the midst of the leaving I am grateful for technology. I am grateful that I can see faces even when I'm not there in person. I am grateful that I can send "letters" that will be received instantly rather than barely arriving before I return. I am grateful for love and grace in both places, for my Charlotte home being grateful for my presence and yet knowing and encouraging my return to Ingersoll, and my Ingersoll home knowing that I need a touch of the South, of my roots, and granting me the grace to visit knowing that I will return soon. What love, to be pulled in so many directions, but how hard it is to leave both homes, no matter the length of absence it is hard to leave either place. But I am grateful that I have the ability to go home, to drink sweet tea and go to Joan's for Thanksgiving (Oh I cannot wait!!!!!!), to see my brother graduate from boot camp (what a proud sister I am!!!!), to see friends and family in person, to touch and hug and laugh, to be home. And I am grateful that when I return to Ingersoll I will be glad to be home. I will go to Coffee Culture and get a Chai Tea (love it!), I will go to Juanita's and distract Liam from school, I will go to youth group and laugh and build relationship, I will be home. What joy I find in both places...thank you Jesus for granting me the grace to be so loved and to have the ability to be home, wherever that might be at the time.