When I flipped on the news this morning to hear the latest terror,
my first reaction was to cower in a closet. As of child of the bomb shelter
decades, I was imprinted with repetitive school drills of leaving my lunchtray behind to go hide in the hallway. Community sirens sounded warnings for tornadoes, and precious time was limited to scurry to safety. The bulls-eye graphic on the TV screen was only a test of the emergency broadcast system. Mother told me to keep clear from dense woods and loud carnivals where the gypsies captured children. Stay away from swimming pools of polio virus. Swat disease laden mosquitoes. Quarantined classmates were banned from public, with warning labels on their front doors. Danger was always in the distance, threatening to come closer. While the enemy did not always materialize, fear had already taken its captives. The hallway lessons trained me to lock my doors, buckle my seat belt, take my vitamins, pay attention to the news, and don't talk to strangers.

Until I studied Beth Moore's series, applying Psalm 126 and Micah 7:18, I thought it was only dangerous, bad boogie man things that intercept our safety zones and drag us into exile, away from the prosperous presence of God. Sin, for instance. Sin should be easy enough to identity--it's the wrong answer and looks like rationalization, disobedience, distraction, and deception. Temptation rings the warning bell before sin bullets the conscience.

What I had not considered were those "no kill traps"--the ones that
entice and then hold victims until they can be carried away and released far from home, without a map or even a lunch token. Traps like busyness, pleasant circumstances, being in love, grief over loss, jam-packed schedule, luxury, even ministry to others. I have been on these journeys, even considered them destinations.

No wonder I was homesick.