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I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. —Psalm 122:1

Finally we came to the goal of our Iona pilgrimage, the oldest building on the island, a chapel built in the twelfth century. What a bedraggled lot we were, less than half the size of the group that had left the abbey that morning. Exhausted, many with stinging feet and aching backs, but all with overwhelmingly jubilant hearts, we entered the small chapel and stood in silence together. There, in the ethereal glow of the closing day, from somewhere within our group, a soft refrain began to rise, a refrain that had accompanied us throughout the day, "Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia."

What I have carried home with me, more than anything else, is the overwhelming sense of life as an ongoing journey into God's presence, on a road filled with pilgrims—laughing and crying, praying and singing, and sometimes just being silent together in love. As my husband Robert and I have relived our Iona experience, we have been acutely aware of the presence of Daily Guideposts readers walking beside us, as well as all those devout men and women throughout the centuries who have known the heart's longing for God.

Yes, the longing is still there. I think it may be God's way of drawing us home. So I'll continue to follow it as long as I live. Perhaps we'll meet on the way home.
May you be an isle in the sea,
May you be a hill on the shore,
May you be a star in the darkness,
May you be a staff to the weak,
And may the power of the Spirit
Pour on you, richly and generously,
Today, and in the days to come.
(Iona by Peter W. Millar)