Home...

...Is where, they say, the heart is. I've been thinking a lot about what home actually means to me. When we use the word, it often evokes warm, sentimental feelings, especially when we think of things like,"grandma's home-style cookies". They reflect something personal and intimate, not merely a pre-packaged chips ahoy. Recently, I've experienced a loss of "home". I used to think I had a nomadic spirit. There is something so adventurous about letting the wind take you wherever it pleases. As desultory as my life may have seemed, I've seen things I've never imagined, experienced beauty beyond words, met wonderful people whom I would have never known existed. As much as I am grateful for all these exploits, there is something to be said about the feeling of permanence. Stability used to be mean being complacent to me. Complacency always made me feel lazy or unambitious. When you've lived most your life by the motto of carpe diem, its hard to sit still. I took home for granted. It was always there, somewhere I knew I could journey back to, an Ithaca for my Ulysses spirit. The funny thing is, so often we take for granted the things we think we will always have. The human spirit is always in search, always prone to wander, always seeking for things is has not possessed.

It wasn't until my recent move where I began to think more seriously about what "home" means to me. It wasn't just changing locations this time, but an experience in the loss of relationship and familiarity. My home used to be me, my sister and my mother. And yes, living with 3 girls is exactly how you imagine it to be; chaotic. My sister was the first to leave. I won't lie, it was difficulty to cope with the fact that I would lose her to her husband (though he is a wonderful man). I knew she was on a journey to build her own home and start her own family. As she cleaved away from us, I felt like I had already lost the corner stone to my home. She was always there for me, the one I would run to when I wasn't getting along with mom, the one I cried to when I got my heartbroken; she was my rock. And now, here we were, down to two. It wasn't easy and for a while, my relationship with my mother was like a roller coaster ride; when it was good, it was great, but more often than not, it was taxing. My mother had a hard life, and I know it isn't easy being a widow raising two children. There was a part of me that always imagined I could help her heal if I were just patient and kind enough to her. We all hope that somehow, our love will be enough to fix someone, but the truth is I couldn't manage to even fix myself. We were tearing each other down more than we were building up. I knew this was something I needed to walk away from; and now, here I was, down to one.

What scared me the most about moving out was the idea that I would possibly never have a place to return to. Things changed so drastically this year. The room I had lived in for the better half of my adult life would soon be occupied by someone else. In a naive manner, I imagined that I would always have this home, but now my Ithaca was gone. It all hit me my first night in my new place. The change of scenery triggered a deeper emotional response I didn't expect. As I lay in bed crying, I thought about how alone and uncertain everything felt. Life felt fugacious, and for the first time, I longed for something permanent and stable. As I searched my bible for some word of encouragement, I came across a passage in Isaiah:

¹ This is what the LORD says:
"Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
Where will my resting place be?

I never thought of what it means to build a house for the Lord. You always imagine Him to be this omnipresent being hovering over you at all times. Through all the journeys and unexpected wind-tossing, God would be looming above me somewhere in his home in heaven. But to imagine, that he would ask us to build Him a dwelling place amongst us. The lost I experienced made me long for something permanent, a refuge in the tempest of existence, and here is God, asking me to build a resting place for Him. There was a part of me that had forgotten the permanence God longs for with us. In my pain, I had withheld relationship, and in my joy, I had forgotten to give thanks. I began to realize that there is something so important in the act of building a house for the Lord. His resting place would become mine as well. We all know that life is filled with unpredictable variables. Some of us have family to turn too, some of us may not. Some may never feel in want, some will be in need. Some may never wander, some may play the role of the Prodigal Son and eventually find their way back, and some may never be that lucky. Despite the cards we're dealt by the hand of fortune or fate, the truth remains that we will never be homeless. There is always a place we can return to if we would choose to build a house for the Lord in our lives. Sooner or later, we will all return to our true home, where no one will ever feel like an orphan again. There is an overwhelming sense of comfort in that truth. Before that time comes, I can only hope that God would allow me to build a new Ithaca, with a family and a husband, here on earth. I hope it will be a home filled with laughter and love, and above all else, filled with God's presence.