"The Place Where I Belong"

"I want to run on greener pastures

I want to dance on higher hills

I want to drink from sweeter waters

In the misty morning chill.

When my soul is getting restless

For the place where I belong

I can't wait to join the angels

And sing my heaven song..."

If the gap between one year and the next is visualized as a canyon, with the last few hours of one year and the first few of the next appearing as a bridge over the canyon, Phil Wickham was the pavement across my bridge between 2009 and 2010.

Yesterday evening I had coffee with my friend Mari - who is, perhaps, as much of a Phil Wickham fan as myself - and she mentioned that she had debated between a Phil Wickham concert in Portland and a party with some mutual friends for the momentous changing of the date. I don't usually track music artists' tour locations, but when I heard that Phil Wickham was going to be playing live at midnight, I proposed we ditch the party a little early and head to the concert. Mari was game!

At the party we managed to talk my friend Laura into going with us also, so rather than ringing in the new year drinking champagne and eating crackers and cheese, we were packed into a church with standing room only, singing praise music and being blessed. Not what I had expected or probably even would have planned, but that fact is fittingly symbolic of my 2009!

The new album, "Heaven and Earth," could not have come onto my radar at a better time. I love, love, love the focus on heaven woven throughout the album. It correlates with a study that my college-age church group has been doing for the last 6 weeks on Heaven. Not to mention the slow settling of reality in my life that a friend - close to my age, sharing many of my passions and dreams - is now a resident of Jesus's fabulous home.

Actually, I'm a bit jealous of that fact. The song resonates with me in the sense of a "restless soul." That's one of my biggest struggles. I've tried to figure out what causes it in me - my personality type, my experiences, my sins, my family, my home environment - but I think in reality, it's because of Jesus.

What I love the most about the album, perhaps, is how the focus is on heaven through the context of Jesus. Heaven is God's home. When I was adopted into the family - made possible because of what Jesus did -, that became my home as well. Nothing - nothing, no place - is going to feel like "home" until I get there. And I'm homesick for this yet-unseen home. But more, I'm homesick for the unadulterated presence of Jesus.

Lucky Anth!

As I raised my hands in worship and harmonized to some of my favorite songs, my heart's desire and subsequently my prayer going across the time bridge into this new year - this new decade - was for Jesus. For more of his love, for greater understanding of who and what he is, for an unquenchable desire for his vital, vivid presence, and a voracious yearning to be with him in whatever context I find myself in.

Just to be with him is enough.

I have an image in my head of a child being picked up by his father and I see the child put his hands on either side of his father's face, like small children are prone to do. I may be a "grown-up" and I may have outgrown binkies and diapers and carseats awhile ago, but I want to be that child. I want to be held in my Father's arms, where his face is accessible, right before my own. I want to see his smile and look into his eyes, and know that nothing - not my own crazy actions or lies I fall for or assertions of my independence - can distract me or pull me out of that spot or somehow become more pulchritude than the face of Jesus.

I can't wait to see Jesus' face this year!