I would love to be able to hang out with my friends, but I can hold off till next January. After all, I have all of Scotland & Europe to keep me entertained, plus a full time job to bash away at too. Family is a little tougher in some respects. It pains me to think that Charlotte & Bethany are going to be 6 months old when I get back & I have missed out on a big part of their growth, but again, I hope to be around for the rest of their lives & it is certainly a little better knowing that they wont even remember the time that they spent growing up without me.
Basically, I haven’t had any major problems with being away from people in Sydney at all. Working in Mangrove Mountain got me used to the idea of being a fair way away & then my mind which is geared toward just getting whatever is in front of me done is coping with doing just that as the opportunities to try new things & see every fresh thing around me.
Knowing how comfortable & secure I feel, I was a little tripped out by last night. Not only did I have a dream that I remember upon waking (a rare occurrence indeed), but I ended the dream in tears & almost woke up crying.
I was out in the country, I saw a plane fly by low & drop something (it is interesting that even in my dreams, seeing a low-lying plane makes me think that they are aiming at a Sept. 11 style attack) & then I was walking to the plane so I could help pick up whatever it dropped. My dad, Uncle Stevie & some other random guy were standing there, so I shook all of their hands. As I continued to scan around for hands to shake, I saw my Grandfather Joe-Joe. Joe-Joe died a couple of years ago, but I could see him as clear as day, but where I could chat with my dad & shake all of the others hands, I knew that despite appearing in front of me, he was beyond touch & all I was going to hear would be an echo of his voice stored away from memories of him telling me that he used to be able to hold me in the palm of his hand. He was a man that I loved and admired, but now he only stood before me as an image & a collection of memories.
My first real pang of homesickness had arrived. It had come in a dream & it is not a need to get back to Sydney or even Australia. To love people & loose them is not what God created me or anyone else for, but through our sin it is what we have received. I’m homesick for the Promised Land. I want an eternal relationship & want to see the faces of those I love around me & know that they are secure in Christ. I want an end to mourning, and end to war and an end to death. I long to wake every day to the pleasure of real peace and the joy of endless opportunities & to never have to hesitate because of a real or imagine fear.
I love my family so much. Every one of them is precious to me, but I know that too often I disappoint them & that sometimes they frustrate me. I have more quality friends than any one man deserves and enough friendly acquaintances that I never need fear that I don’t have a place to stay in an emergency, or someone to chat to if I was worried about something. Sometimes I lie to my friends & all too often I work at portraying an image of myself to the wider circles of my world which is a representation of what I would like them to think I am rather than an accurate representation of who I really am.
I yearn for an honesty that is complete and definite & I pine for depth of relationship that transcends all pretence and sings with a passion clean and pure.
I love my life. There is so much I would like to see and do, but sometimes I can almost hear heaven�s call.
Some days I just want to go home.
Tim Goldsmith 