We typically celebrate “homecomings” in the fall. Churches, schools, it’s a common practice to take a day or weekend to go back home and celebrate the place or time you were there. So much talk of homecomings has put fresh thoughts back in my head about “home.”
I’ve thought a lot about this topic in recent months. Maybe an unhealthy amount. One of the residual pieces of losing my second parent was having to clean out and sell my childhood home. This was what took up the better part of my summer – losing everything that was “home” piece by piece. There was no practical way to stop this. I hadn’t lived there in 25 years. I couldn’t justify keeping it. So, the only real option was to part ways with it.
Let’s just say that I was unprepared for how emotionally and psychologically difficult this would be. So my mind has been consistently wrestling with where home actually is. In fact, this has been churning in my brain since before Dad died. I actually wrote a note (in my phone, not on a piece of paper) before he died to consider writing something about it. Look, I’m weird. I know. But this is how my brain works. We’re all just going to have to come to grips with it.
I made that note in the spring. I didn’t actually do anything else with it because everything happened and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t pin down my thoughts or find the right words. As the days turned into months and somehow another summer came and went, fall and all of it’s warm, cozy talk of homecoming has crept in. And don’t think that I don’t feel Christmas sitting out there with all it’s “I’ll be Home for Christmas” glory. Blah.
So now I wonder where home actually is. Do you ever think about this or is just me and my overactive, emotionally-drained brain? I have a picture on my living room wall that says, “Home Sweet Home.” Yes, I own a house. I have a mortgage so I don’t know if “sweet” is the correct word. But it’s an actual dwelling. I’m not homeless in that regard. I am super grateful for this, by the way. I don’t want to make light of how fortunate I am to have an actual house.
My parents lived in the house I grew up in for approximately 40 years. They made many changes and additions to it through the years, but that’s the house I think of as home. It no longer belongs to my family. The land it sits on and the road that runs in front of it and the neighbors that live near it, are all part of that package that to me is home. A definition of home actually says, “where one lives permanently.” I guess that’s not exactly accurate.
We are all familiar with the phrase, “home is where the heart is.” Some of you probably thought that immediately when you saw the title of this post. We’re so conditioned to that thought. It is kind of true. It was my parents that made that house a home. I could leave because they were there. And then they weren’t, and a piece of my heart went with them. Home seems gone on all fronts.
It just leaves me searching for where home actually is. I’m not sure that there is a correct answer. It might be different for you, but I’ve come to some conclusions of where it is for me. It’s not a single place, and it’s not tangible.
Home is in my personality. In my beliefs and priorities. In my perspective of the world. It’s in the foundation my parents gave me. My perception of it is tinted by the life I have known. In the world I know, my home is dinner with my husband and kids. It’s in picking on my sister. It’s worshiping God in church. It’s in loving my close friends hard because that’s what I watched my parents do with theirs. It’s what I classify as important.
Until I get to my Heavenly home, my home is actually in all the things that I invest my time in. It’s the people or projects I give my limited time to. Time spent writing to encourage you equals home. Giving my energy to my family, my friends, my church, my community is its own kind of home. It’s where I’m comfortable. It’s where I’m unapologetically me. My “permanent home” has a foundation of Jesus, walls of kindness, a floor of grace, a roof of encouragement and doors of love. It’s where I always aim to be. You are welcome here any time.
