“”Can you hear me say, “I love you” from across the sea?””

Much like my friend Dallas Fluegel, I contain no musical talent but love how Dallas is contributing to the musical world by his website “The Unheard“! And through his vision am inspired to share in that contribution spreading the word to those unheard; ha, that rhymed! But in all seriousness… everyone, because the unheard need be heard much more!

I’ve been listening to the song Oslo by De Joie (Kaley Rutledge) and meditating on the question given by Dallas at the end of his article…

“WHAT DOES HOME MEAN?“

This song is beautiful! And you can read about it with the lyrics by clicking the link above in that question (“what does home mean?”)!

MY TAKE

As I listen to the song, I experience a mental simulation of myself walking along this shore of a sea or ocean. And as I’m walking along… I peer out across this vast expanse of water, incapable of seeing where the water meets the shore on the other side. I wonder to myself, “”can she hear me say, “I love you””.

I especially resonate with this idea of hope for home to know, “I love you”, while in the same verse communicating, “I’m wild and free”. Funny, because essentially that’s saying, “I’ll miss you, but don’t worry, trust me, I’m in good company.” I think there is this sense of security we have from home that gives us this ability to roam as though wild and free. And as you can see, Norway is a long way away from home.

I’ve never been to Norway, but have been to Germany. My grandma saw me off with a prayer and there I went, far from home on a mission trip to Weimar with my church at the time. I’m so impressed with how this song fits the description of feelings experienced at a particular stage in my life far from home, wild and free. But when I was there did my grandma hear me say, “I love you”, from across the sea? And, “don’t worry, trust me, I’m in good company.”

The meaning of home, for me, at that time, was my grandma. I was at a crossroads—a very difficult time in my life in my early to mid twenties. I was in a very broken place, vulnerable, but through unexpected events and immense amount of love and care from the God in my grandma… I found the meaning of home. I can hear God say from across the sea, “I love you”. And because I can hear it, my home is complete.

So now here I am away from home, not too far off from my twenties at 32, married to my beautiful wife, Laura. Saying from across the sea, “I love you”. And wonder… “can she hear me?”

To think on that causes me to feel something special. A metaphor with the potential to penetrate every soul with the sound of God. Because just like we tell home from across the sea (metaphorically), “I love you”. So too does God from across the other side of life because death will eventually be abolished. We can hear Him say, “I love you”. And we don’t have to worry, we can trust Him, because we are in good company.

You can know that you are in good company because of the seal of the Holy Spirit given by God through believing in Jesus Christ. When we make the personal decision to accept the Word of God as the truth that it is, we are claiming the gift of the Holy Spirit to seal our salvation from death and resurrect to life eternal by faith in the work of God. We are incapable of salvation apart from this help of the Holy Spirit to sanctify our souls from living amongst the enemy of God, that enemy is the dust of death.

That is why I believe we can feel a sense of security here on this side of eternity, wild and free in good company, because God is where our home is. Can you hear God say, “I love you”, from across the sea?

---