Nomad......It occurred to me over the last few weeks that I am a nomad. Since I was 18 and left for college I have been a wanderer. God has taken me from place to place through Jon's ministry in the Air Force and now his pastorate in Marble, Colorado; the village at the end of the road.....Wow! We have moved every 2-3 years. I am like one of those Bedouin tribes who still roam from place to place. I am like the shepherds who wander from green pasture to green pasture. I am like the Native Americans who followed the buffalo and found winter camps sheltered from high plains wind. The wonders that I have seen and the people that I have met are a precious gift from my Maker. Yet God has over and over called me through Jon's ministry to leave those gifts behind to go to another place.

It is difficult to be a nomad when family is scattered all over and when those we love suffer. We nomads cry tears in silent places and pray prayers in sheltered places. We walk out our front doors to be with the people God has called us to love and we love them. Yet our hearts are full for those far away who cry because of the journey that life is taking them on.

So as a nomad, a wanderer, God has brought me to this place high in the mountains that lies at the end of the road. Its beauty and peacefulness has thrilled my soul in ways that I cannot express in words! It offers many silent places to cry and many shelterd places to pray. It offers peaks in which I have automatically shouted out Halleluia or simply sang the doxology,"Praise God from whom all blessings flow....." Yet I asked God as a nomad, do I have a "place"? The Still Small Voice spoke and said "your place is in Me." My place is Jesus. My home is Jesus. I have a place.

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country---a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them." Hebrews 11: 13-16