Home (by Kate M.)

"Where do you consider home?" I have been told more than once, “Come home. I miss you.” by people living in very different places. Where do I consider home? To one of those people, I answered--I AM home. Where’s home? Where I lay my head? That makes home a somewhat impersonal object, objective to my whim and unimportant to everyday occurrences/doings.

My mother recently told me, “I never quite feel I am totally at home anywhere.” Innocence is bliss, but discoveries and travel make a wandering (or a wanderer's) heart.

Are we meant to completely feel at home anywhere here on earth?

“For we know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For this tent--we groan--longing to put on our heavenly dwelling...while we are still in this tent (our earthly dwelling, our temporary, nomadic living place), we groan...that we would further be clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life...we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

I am not--we are not--truly home. All we can really construct for ourselves is the equivalent of a tent--like the tabernacle carried throughout the desert with the Israelites--the temporary house of the Lord in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, the wanderings of Jesus Christ foreshadow the wandering of my own self. Where was Jesus’ Home? His own family criticized him--definitely not making him feel welcome in his own hometown. "The son of man has no place to rest his head."

The homes/houses made by man can only be temporary and whether we realize it or not, Christian or Atheist--we all long for some kind of eternity. The psalms sing of longing to dwell with the Lord that they long for and hope: “But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house...” Eternity equals “at home with the One-who-makes-everything-whole": the Lord God almighty, the creator of the heavens and earth.

Where is my home? What do I call home?

Jesus, I believe, found home on earth. In his years of ministry, at times rejected by his family, he was able to find a home wherever he traveled. Everything was provided for; he was welcomed with prepared meals, welcomed with ears longing to hear of his travels/thoughts, doused in perfumes and given a place to wash his feet...and a place to also wash the feet of his friends.

“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers (sisters) dwell in unity...it is like the (tender, calm, refreshing) dew that falls upon the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.”

...How good and pleasant.... like the dew on mountains, dew bringing water, and therefore life on the young plants and flowers--perhaps an image of God’s provision in and for nature, even maybe an image of love and harmony? How beautiful it is when those who hold each other as a beloved family are together, when they come together from the places that have kept them separated for any length of time. “It is here that the Lord has commanded blessing, even life forevermore.”

Eternal life, a piece of home--our True Home--has been blessed upon us in our unity, and in our unity in Christ, who has redeemed us.

Where do I consider home? On earth? Home is not so impersonal as I made it out to be.
It is with all of those who I count as family.
To quote a song appropriately called “Home”:

“Let me come home/Home is wherever I’m with you...Let me come home/Home is whenever I’m with you.”

Jesus spoke to his disciples--his friends and makeshift, motley family before he was crucified-- saying, “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me...so also you [will] have sorrow now [when I’m gone], but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”

So as we come together as family--wherever and whenever--I am home. Wherever I lay my head--that is a place of love and harmony--like dew to grass--that is a place where there is rest and provision--that is a place where meals are prepared or waiting to be made--that is a place with ears waiting to hear of travels and thoughts--that is a place where one can take off their ragged, dusty shoes to wash their own feet or the feet of their beloved ones--that is a place of blessing--to bless and be blessed, a place to laugh and even to cry. THAT is where my home lies.

And as time must come when we part--we will, in a little while, see each other no longer, may our sorrow turn to hope and joy--for, in another little while--we will see each other again: where we will again come home and rejoice.

Kate M. is a military kid, American ex-pat and student at LCC International University in Klaipeda, Lithuania.

Quoted Scriptures:
2 Cor. 5: 1-10
Psalm 5:7
Psalm 133
John 16