Home

“Home”…the word conjures up all kinds of images.  Most people equate the word with a place….  a cozy living room with a couch you can sink into, a table filled with food surrounded by families sharing stories and laughter, backyard campfire complete with gooey s’mores. The home I grew up in as well as the home that we brought our girls up in were always places that reflected the love that we shared as a family.  If we had a horrible day at school or work, home would be our safe haven.  If we were arguing with a family member, home was a place where we could work out an agreement and find peace.  Home was associated with comfort, good memories, and a whole lot of love.

Recently we helped Emily and Gabriella relocate to new jobs in new cities pretty far from “home”. The new adventures that await them are so exciting.  Aiding them in this endeavor of moving has invited me to reflect on the word, home.  As we helped them move into their respective places, of course there were the natural feelings of sadness and unsettledness.  Both of them had unexpected detours and bumps with their move-in, delaying their move-ins and that “at home” feeling even longer.

During this time, I had been reading a book called, “Friendship in the Lord” by Paul Hinnebusch.  This classic offers wisdom on what it means to feel “at-home”:  “Only with the Lord can we really experience what it is to be finally ‘at home’”(82).  This insight made me reflect on how “home” has never really been about the place but it’s been about the people. As Jean Val Jean sings in Les Miserables, “To love another person is to see the face of God”.   The people who live beside us in our homes are reflections of our loving God, the same God who we will one day see face to face in heaven.

I remember a little sign in my grandmother’s house when I was young with the cliché on it: “Home is where the heart is”.  So, home is not necessarily where your newest TV rests or where your favorite pair of shoes lie.  It’s wherever your loved ones are and where the love of God resides.  When we know this and let it fill us with peace, it is good practice for our hearts…for that day when we are fully 'at home' with God.