Home is Wherever I'm With You...

"Home, let me come home, home is wherever I'm with you..."

A favorite song of mine, brought to you courtesy of Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros.

This idea of "home" has really been on my heart this year. There are moments when I feel, with a strange kind of ache, that I am homeless. I know that sounds weird, because I have a house here in Knoxville, I have my parents' house in NC where I grew up, and then I have amazing communities that I have belonged to along the way in Boiling Springs and Spartanburg. So in one way, I have many homes, but the unexpected flipside of this is that I also feel like my heart is spread out a little more with each move. I leave part of it behind, and when I go back to visit, I realize that life continues on in these places without me. It's silly, I know, because I knew that it would, but its still a kind of funny feeling when you go back to a place that is so familiar, to find that it isn't as familiar anymore - it has changed, and so have you.

The Lord has been slowly taking apart my heart regarding this idea of home this year.

(Aside - for those who haven't had their hearts taken apart, or who have forgotten what that feels like, it's kind of painful).

There are these moments when I realize that I have been seeking something familiar, something warm and inviting that says, "you belong here" - and I'm just plain let down. There have been many people and places in my life in which I have been blessed with exactly this sense of home, but this season is slowly removing them and pushing me toward the only truly reliable Refuge.

I have known people in my life who are so at home in the arms of Jesus that they seem to exude a sense of peace and joy wherever they go. Even in hard times, they have this air of serenity about them that is so incredbily attractive to me. I want to be like this. I want to be so at home in Jesus, that wherever I go on this Earth, I carry this sense of home with me. I hope this is what He is working in me...