These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.
But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
Hebrews 11:13 – 16, ESV
My name is Thorne Winter, V.
In 2015, fresh out of college and back home to Atlanta, I began to make weekly trips into the woods of North Georgia, compelled by an emotion that I had never felt before: Sehnsucht, the unshakeable longing for something indescribable; the definitive feeling that something in the world was broken, and needed to be set right. As a Christian, I contemplated this emotion as a desire to see the world restored by God, and all set right.
Enthralled, I began a journal to document my spiritual and personal growth as I set out to get to the bottom of this feeling through weekly nature-outings and regular Bible study. I originally assumed that this journal would be little more than a documentation of the summer and my outdoor excursions, but God had other plans.
While the original journal has been recorded and transcribed in the first few episodes of this podcast, I have continued the process of recording my life and spiritual walk both for the therapeutic benefits, but also as a form of worship as I contemplate how to live as a Christian in exile—an Expat of Eden.