It's Good to Be Home, Church Style

It's good to be home. And by home, I mean back to our church.  This morning in worship I simply soaked it all in.  The people, the music, the sanctuary, the Eucharist, the familiarity.  It's wonderful to travel, but homecomings are so meaningful.

We always worship when we're on vacation, and this trip was no different.  The first weekend, as I blogged about in my post yesterday, my husband ended up leading worship. There were about 20 people there, seven of which were my family.  Late the evening before, my husband and I chose a few hymns, he looked up the daily readings and prepared a brief meditation, and we were blessed to worship in our campground instead of traveling a distance to another church.

The second Sunday we were in Grand Canyon National Park.  There are very few towns/people outside of the North Rim park, so going outside of the park for worship would have been difficult.  Thankfully, there were several options offered for worship inside the park, so we were grateful to attend a service in the lodge (at 8 am!).  It was a blessing to gather with those people, and in an auditorium with a view of the beautiful Grand Canyon!

But.  There is something about being home to worship.  With our (church) family, our friends, our dear ones.  And since we had been unable to commune at either place we attended on vacation, we were all eager to receive the Eucharist.

So today I soaked it in.  I let God's word, read and preached, enter my heart.  I let God's body and blood enter my body.  I praised God with familiar hymns and songs.  And I looked at the faces of those in our congregation with love.

It's good to be home.