A sister in Relief Society said that she had a moment, laying out her Seminary materials recently, where she just suddenly felt like she missed her Heavenly Father so much.  We used to be with him, we are taught; but for this moment her heart was open and longing for that nearness, that presence, which she used to know.  She really knew, not as a precept, but as truth.

We lived in a perfect place with such complete love and light, that we can scarce imagine it now.  Our spirit selves remember, and every so often, that feeling wells up inside us that we can't put words to.  Paul speaks of "groanings that cannot be uttered" and the footnote says the Greek is "sighings" (Romans 8:26). He is describing those moments when the Spirit draws our hearts upward to God in a state where there are no words.  Language sometimes just isn't adequate.

That yearning to be with our Father again, though it may reach toward the eventual day of our return, also pulls us to be with him here, by longing to be filled with his Spirit — truly filled to the point where there is no space not alight, where we know joy without hesitation, and we know gratefully that we are not the same as we were before.

If we have experienced such moments, we look for them again.  They stretch our souls and change our perspective.  Those choices and actions that diminish the light within us make us unhappy a lot faster, because we have become more sensitive to spiritual distance, desiring to close it.

In a very real way, repentance is homesickness.  It is the yearning for healing, for peace, the yearning to change pain for relief — the faith that we can replace dullness with joy.  Sin takes many forms, but whatever form it takes — unkindness, selfishness, dishonesty, or whatever it is — it puts a barrier between us and our Father.  The homesickness within us, at a level we may not consciously understand, is the longing to have that light and love fill us again, as it surrounded and filled us before this earth life.

The hymn, "More Holiness Give Me" includes in its pleas, "more freedom from earthstains, more longing for home."  Longing for home.  Doesn't that suppose more hope than we find in pushing guilt?  It gives us a reason to reach upward to our Redeemer, as he promises us a way Home.  He is made the way, the only way given.

The old Southern hymn that begins, "My Shepherd will supply my need," ends, "no more a stranger, nor a guest, but like a child at home."  As children, may we grow up and come home safely.