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RUDY SHEPTOCK MAY 20, 2023

I have spent the last 10 days in Florida visiting my Daughters and five of my Grandkids who live down here in the Sunshine State. I have to be honest with you, while I know it is many a person’s dream to live here in the eternal land of heat stroke, I have never been one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I would be with my family wherever they may call home, but living in an oven is not my idea of paradise. And as a native of North Jersey, I think that way too many have migrated to Tampa and Orlando and Daytona Beach bringing the phenomenon of rubber necking and bumper to bumper travel and nonstop traffic with them. I hate the time being stuck in a car moving one inch at a stretch. I joke about the 4:30 PM standstill daily on Route 61 as you enter Shamokin because it some days may be 6 cars deep!

Bono wrote with such convicting and compelling lyrics that he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. Dorothy Gale went all the way to Oz and back searching for answers somewhere over the rainbow. Johnny Cash used to sing, “I’ve been everywhere Man,” and proceeded to list the towns that he inhabited like one would spit out a grocery list. John Denver philosophically pontificated that he was looking for space and to find out who he was. Diana Ross asked us if we knew where we were going to and if we liked the things that life was revealing to us as we walked the path before us. The Beach Boys lamented that they just wanted to go home and leave sailing on the Sloop John B to the real sailors. I am not here in Florida because of the weather, the attractions, the palm trees, or the orange juice. I am here only because I have a real relationship and love some of the wonderful family that calls this sauna home.

I wish I wasn’t so restless. I have battled being satisfied with who I am, where I am and what I am with the ones I’m with my entire life. I can share without hesitation that it is not money or possessions I seek. It has never been about titles or gadgets or cars or houses for me. I can honestly report that God has always done an excellent job providing all our needs. I didn’t say wants. I said that God makes sure that if we don’t have it, we don’t need it! It is one of the reasons I think we pay athletes and entertainers way too much salary. How many houses can you live in at one time? How many vehicles are you able to drive? What good is it if you gain all the things that the almighty dollar can buy but still forfeit your very soul in the process?

One of the hardest things about being here in Florida is that the whole state reminds me of my Dad. My parents had moved from Jersey to Interlachen, Florida back in 1983. I waved to them as they hit the highway. My Dad hated the cold. Unlike his oldest son, he didn’t revel in the white precipitation flakes that fall from the sky. Of course, I came to visit the family over the years but I never had the urge to relocate. In 2000, the year my father passed due to a horrible battle with cancer, I actually spent 7 months on the Cape May Court House to Tampa shuttle via Spirit Airlines. I was honored to be holding his hand when he took that last labored breath that ushered him into the arms of Jesus. When I left Florida after Dad had graduated to glory, this visit back now is only my third time here in Gatorland in the last 23 years. My heart yearns for reunion. I know I have never been whole since that September. Have you ever had a hard time being in a certain area because the memories cause such heartache? While I am here with Leah and Abbie and five of my grandchildren having a blast and making awesome new memories, I just can’t shake the pain of letting go of the old ones. Honestly, I am looking forward to coming back to Shamokin. While our little Coal town isn’t much to look at from the outside these days, I still see and feel God there and for now, it is my home.

Maybe restlessness isn’t such a curse after all. Could it be that the Lord provided it as a gift to never get too attached to this side of heaven? If you know me, you know that I always joke about ever resuscitating me should I die in your presence. I have no desire to spend just 90 minutes in heaven and then be brought back. If you snatch me out of glory after I’ve been there, I’ll fight you! I have no fear of what is ahead of us after our body conks out. My last breath here will usher my first breath there and it will be wonderful to never have to say, “Goodbye,” again. It’s not the climate or the environment of the everlasting that I yearn for. It’s the company I will keep forever!

The Christian Contemporary Music Artist Steven Curtis Chapman sang, “We are not home yet.” The Christian band Mercy Me challenged us to, “Only Imagine,” what that moment we see Jesus will be like. They also added a tune entitled, “Homesick,” because no matter how good a day is here in Florida or Pennsylvania; it will come to an end. We might make the good times roll but we are not powerful enough to make the feelings go on and on. Perhaps the biggest reason we all need faith in the living God is because we are powerless to transport ourselves from here to there. Is there anybody here who can rescue us from our own brokenness? God, in the very Psalm of 23, has promised that He would escort us through the shadow of the valley of death so that we would have nothing to lose and nothing to fear but everything to gain. How about you? A timeshare secured in the promised land is one you will never need to weasel your way out of.

Two days from now we will be leaving our own flesh and blood behind us. Those precious sloppy wet smooches with our grandkids are priceless but they will have to last until we are reunited once again. Home is not necessarily where your heart is but where God lands you for such a time as this. All I know is I too am still searching to find the answer to soothe the separation anxiety that ties my souls into knots. But I pray that we will be wise enough to understand that earth can’t give us what it is incapable of producing. You don’t go to McDonalds for a whopper! And the palm trees are not about to grow in Northumberland County. But if God is with us, we can be alive wherever we are planted. We can find blessings even amidst the neighborhoods that cause agita. Take this world and give me Jesus because wherever I am, He will be right beside me holding my shaky hand. Home is where my feet land for now. Home is not a building as much as it’s a companion who promises that He will never leave us nor forsake us. I wonder what God’s welcome mat looks like?