The more I live the more I learn what a funny thing home is. Some say it’s the place you were born, the place you now reside, or perhaps it’s the place your heart most longs to be. I think home is a little bit of all three, with each piece of home pulling at our heartstrings with a little more or lot less force and urgency at varying points in our lives.
When I was young my heart was always longing for the home that would someday be: the dream house I imagined camped happily on a farm or deep in the woods of some magical place. When I left my birth home and fell in love with the novelty of a new place of residence my heart was content to be just where it was. And at times my heart is drawn in any which direction. A sudden desire to see the leaves fall on the grass outside my childhood home. A deep sense of gratitude that I reside in one of the most amazing placing in the world and what’s more I have a community there like I’ve never had before. Then comes the longing to have a home filled with my own family someday as my mind fills with pondering about what that home will be like.
Home is so many places and yet not a single one.
And for all my talk of love, longings, and dreams there is one truth that reigns above them all. One that rings loud and clear, a comfort to my weary soul when no one place can satisfy: this world is not my home. I am not yet home.
