Redefining Home

Home.

What comes to your mind when you hear that word?

Home used to come with an address in my mind. Whatever house I lived in I called my home.

And yet, house and home can be differentiated. The two are very different things. House is a structure. Home is a concept. I associate the word with warmth, comfort, and peace. It is where I find rest and belonging.

My family is full of movers and shakers-we've moved across cities, states, oceans-and every time we uprooted and settled into our next "temporary home", I somehow still felt a sense of comfort and stability amidst the uneasiness of living in an unfamiliar place. It was that way until moving this summer; I felt greatly uncomfortable and vulnerable to the change. Moving was nothing new to me. Yet this time was different. I had moved into another house less than half an hour away - still in familiar territory, but I was without my family.

Then it dawned on me...

Home has never been the place I live, but the people I am with.

From then on I knew; a house is not home without my people. Throughout all the traveling, unsettling and resettling my family and I went through, they became my home. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill put it well in one of their most recent duets, "It don't matter as long as we're together, it all feels like home."

Right on. I found stability, reassurance and belonging {home} in being with them amidst countless transitions because they were my constant.

So then I thought: if my people bring all the feelings of comfort, belonging, and security (distinguishing a house from a home) does living apart from them make me a nomad?-lacking comfort, belonging, security?

Being so far from my people, I was suddenly acutely aware of this empty sense of home. With my family overseas and my friends scattered across the country,

I found myself singing a different song...

"Nothin' is as it has been...Been talking 'bout the way things change.

And my family lives in a different state.

And if you don't know what to make of this

Then we will not relate...Rivers and roads.

Rivers 'til I reach you." (The Head and the Heart, "Rivers and Roads")

It was like a strange, distressing notion that I've been displaced from who I belong.

This was the same heartache I felt after leaving Swaziland a few summers ago. My home was with a team of girls who traveled there with me for a month; they became my people. And in such a short time too. Leaving Swaziland meant leaving these dear friends, and it was as if my heart was saying, "Nooo! I belong with them!" Despite my heart, we couldn't stay in Swaziland on Inhlawangane st. forever. The month came to a close and each of us went our own way. I returned to my family and friends in California while my Swazi teammates returned to theirs. The thing is, I was home again with my California people but I also felt far from home with my Swazi people. This story has a point. Hang in there (;

I have learned that there is such a thing of being at home while simultaneously being away from home.

I've experienced both heartache and happiness in my close relationships; being in one place with those I love means missing someone from someplace else.

I think Katie Davis describes it better in her book Kisses from Katie; "You will never be completely at home again because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place."

This is the blessing and the curse of sharing life with such neat people from all over the world! (I love you guys.)

As much as I would absolutely enjoy having everyone living together in one place, being entirely at home all the time, people have their own life to live. It is a life of plans and pursuits, frequently changing with or without our control.

As people come and go, my heart grows tired of feeling alone. It longs to find an everlasting home with a community of people who will never leave; where comfort and joy and peace never diminish. I think there's something to that. We are made to live together, not apart, from each other. Our hearts are designed for a forever kind of community, which is why we ache for it.

I thought I could find a permanent home in this world. But even with the comfort I find in the presence of my people, my longing for home is never completely satisfied. As if my heart, my very soul, is created for more.

The truth is, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing [no one] in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” (C.S. Lewis).

We were made for another world; a perfect home where community and belonging are never lost. "The fact that our heart yearns for something Earth can't supply is proof that Heaven must be our home." (C.S. Lewis). Our true home is Heaven. I bet my life on it.

Though I'm not there yet, I catch glimpses of what my true home will be like by getting to know my Maker. He knows my heart more than anyone because He's the One who made it. Only He can fill me to the point where I lack nothing. And while I wait for home in Heaven, I find all the comfort and joy I need- even more, in knowing and loving the Maker as He knows and loves me. It's a beautiful thing, really, to have my home in Him. Having Him as my home means choosing to draw near to Him no matter where I go because He is the One true constant in my life; He promises never to leave my side.

If we choose to make our home with Him, He promises to always be with us, in this life and the next. The Maker is the One we can count on.

The concept of home can be a difficult thing to wrap our mind around. It took a lot of thought to put into words; it is not an easy thing to comprehend.

But if you look for answers, the Truth will come.

I've found the truth in knowing this:

Home is with the people I love, scattered all across the world. Until Heaven, where home is made complete, I will always be missing a part of my heart as I live away from some of those I love. And yet, I can find all that my heart longs for by making my home with the One who will never leave. Wherever I go, whatever place I live, whoever I'm with, I am home with Him, always and forever.