Church is church, regardless of its location or the language spoken by the congregation. Church is a place for anyone to come and worship God. Today I had the great opportunity of attending the Hillsong Barcelona church. Even though the entire service was in Spanish, I was able to understand the message through a lovely translator who retold the entire thing in English. The Pastor opened up with the image of rushing to leave your home for a vacation and coming back with everything scattered, just the way you left it. He said that life is like this. Life can be messy, and even when you try to leave, you come back and it’s still a mess. Sometimes what happens is you leave God because you think you’re better off, but then you return to him with the mess you’ve made of your life. In Luke 15, the younger son leaves with his father’s wealth because he wants to go out and have fun. Soon enough, he spends all his money and realizes he must return home because he has nothing. For us, we must start off by realizing what our mess is and stop, so that we can return home. Like the father welcoming his son, God will always welcome us home. He will always forgive us and be excited when we come back, because Jesus paid the price for us to come home. Leaving home is costly, and though we can always come back home, there will always be a price to return. Jesus died so that we can return to God cost free. Once the son returned home, his father threw a celebration for him. And the story ends there. When we return home the stress of work or school ends, and God makes everything better. Attending this church service was exactly what I needed. I love knowing that even if I’m stupid enough to leave God, he will welcome me with open arms and help me clean up my mess. Adios!